


Steal Your Heart

by Pingoodle (ThatAloneOne)



Series: Steal Your Heart [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 43,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/Pingoodle
Summary: Sometimes people get their hearts stolen. Literally.Meadhbh is a Stealer - she’s supernaturally strong and fast, but it comes with a price. She has to replace her heart monthly - each time with the heart of a gullible boy, anyone stupid enough to tell her they love her.Naythan isn’t a gullible boy. He grew up in the Stealer Research Compound, and he’s proven resistant to Stealer supernatural charm before.Meadhbh is captured when she sacrifices herself to save her family, and the more time Naythan spends with her, the more he doubts everything he’s learned about Stealers. Meadhbh is just a girl, not a monster. None of the other scientists agree with him, and now Naythan, too, is under suspicion.Whatever’s happening, Naythan can’t bring himself to stay away from Meadhbh, but Meadhbh still has secrets that might turn out to be fatal.





	1. 1. Meadhbh

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my disclaimer: this is old. I love it to pieces, but it isn't something that Current Me wrote, or maybe would have written. Also, mind the "Choose Not To Warn".
> 
> Also, I recommend this as the work to start with in the series as it was written first.

**PART I**

**HUNTER**

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

_-Ernest Hemingway_

The moment I saw him, I knew that he was the one.

He had the shoulders of a bull under his pristinely pressed football jacket. His buddies, gathered all around him, weren’t as disgustingly masculine as he was, though they were certainly trying. I don't remember his face, besides it being decidedly sullen, scowling out at the world at general. He checked off every single mental box.

I smiled.

I walked up to the group of boys, my feet slipping silently over the ground. My heart felt much too heavy in my chest, laboriously pumping blood like I was on the last mile of a marathon. My fingers were already freezing cold. My cornsilk hair slipped out from behind my ear, and I left the strands dangling in front of my face, knowing it made me look sweeter. More innocent.

I was in his shadow in seconds, unnoticed in the rabble even with my bright hair. But that was enough of that. I tapped the megalith on the shoulder, almost shyly. He turned, nearly body checking the nearest crony.

The boy scowled until it clicked: I was a girl. A sweet, innocent looking girl at that. His face lightened from a scowl to a slight sneer. Eyes raked up and down my body, quite concealed by jeggings and a leather jacket. I’m sure he considered it excessive clothing for September.

I smiled brightly, trying to push sunbeams out of every orifice. "Hi? I um... Just wanted to say hi." I smoothed my coat down, fingers warming slightly with the friction. My mind stuttered, stammered, shut down. He was perfect. He was here. I couldn’t mess this up. "Lovely day?"

"You new?" he grunted, completely ignoring my attempt at small talk. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"Yeah," I ran my hands down my jacket again, willing my circulation to restart. _Jeez, I've only been sixteen a month. Do I have to do this **every month**? Pain in the ass. Mother didn't warn me about it being this often._

Then again, when had Mother ever been helpful with this?

My target grunted again, like that would help him look even more manly.

_Boys_.

I nodded again, and spewed out my next sentence like it was trying to escape from the pit in my heart. "You wanna go for coffee after school?"

Another grunt this time, this time sounding an affirmative. His cronies shifted and muttered, shooting me exasperated looks. It was time to go.

I smiled again, trying to radiate happiness. It was quite tedious. "Thank you!"

I dismissed myself before the crowd of testosterone poisoned thugs got _too_ antsy, and made my slow and painful way to the entrance.

The crowd bustled around me, hundreds of teenagers all thinking themselves the most important. I got body checked by harried students no less than four times. Each time, it was harder and harder to brush them off and keep walking. My legs were less than steady, and I tried to place my feet as deliberately as possible. It’d be a disaster to be labelled as a klutz, labelled as a ditz, labelled as less than worthy of a date with the captain of the football team.

I needed him way more than he needed a new batch of arm candy. His dilemma was ridiculous: idiotic, even. Mine was life and death.

I’d memorized my schedule, but I checked my paper copy anyway, just in case it had changed overnight. Nope. My first class was still on the third floor. And it was five minutes to the bell.

I couldn’t be late. I couldn’t be so many things.

I closed my eyes, gathered every increment of strength I had, and started my climb. I ignored my racing heart, my trembling arms, the way my backpack was gaining weight like gravity was increasing just to spite the girl with the heart condition.

That was the one use Mother’s lessons was. Lessons in pain and endurance. I’d camped four nights in Algonquin park, once, made my way to the parking lot without so much as a tarp. I’d survived that. I could survive three flights of stairs, no matter what my heart was trying to tell me.

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, my heart was thudding in my chest like an offbeat drummer was playing against my ribs, my breath gone so far it was practically nonexistent. I slid into the classroom, collapsed into my seat, rested my forehead on my hands, hoped I passed for an early morning and not a failure.

I still had six and a half hours of school. I was Meadhbh Tuller, I was strong and amazing, and I could make it through the day. But I needed to get on that date. And fast.


	2. 2. Meadhbh

By the end of the day, I felt like a little old lady. My hands were absolutely _frozen,_ and my heart had been stuttering slightly all PE. I didn't know how much longer I could last. But I wouldn't be able to act right away. It had been stupid, going up to him with all of his buddies around. _Witnesses_.

Witnesses are bad. Witnesses could report you if anything went south. Witnesses...

I had to stifle a wheezing laugh when it hit me – he didn't even know my name. Nor I his. We were ridiculous. So much for witnesses being able to identify me. Not even the guy himself knew my name.

I waited for my date in the soft afternoon light of the courtyard. Students streamed past, air sliding easily in and out of _their_ lungs. Nobody had a hand over _their _heart, trying to keep the staccato rhythm from escaping. Nobody else felt like they were dying.

They didn't know how lucky they were.

My date appeared around the corner, and my ailing heart gave a longing throb, the pain making me hitch a breath. _Deep breath, Meadhbh. Take a deep breath. Calm. Stay calm._

He looked happy, seeing me gasp at the sight of him. I smiled, somewhat more weakly this time. I was deteriorating. Fast.

I reached for his hand as he came closer, folding its warmth around my frigid fingers. He flinched a little at the coldness, but gripped me back, steady and strong. It was like a film negative next to a print – his dark hair, my light. My weakness, his strength.

I looked up through the few inches between our faces, and swung our hands a little between us. I'd been practicing, but that didn't make this any easier.

"Do you have a place in mind?" I asked. "For the coffee."

He nodded, startled out of his ogling. I had allowed my top to creep down a tad over the day, and my leather jacket was unbuttoned, drifting a little in the slight wind. The brisk September wind had nothing on the ice of my heart.

With the boy leading the way, we walked hand-in-hand for a few blocks past the school. Sometimes our clasped hands tapped my thigh, but he hadn't made any moves yet. Besides glancing down at my prominently displayed breasts, of course, but that didn't really count.

I couldn't decide whether I was happy or disappointed about that. I’d have to wait and see how the date went. I was hoping for declarations of everlasting love, personally.

We stopped in front of a quaint little coffee shop, buzzing with chatter and coffee grinders going full tilt. My booted feet stumbled together, still not making much sound in the thin-soled leather. I was clinging to the boy's hand with a considerable amount of energy, trying to keep myself upright. My vision swam, almost making his face appear underwater. This wasn't good.

He looked down at me, raising a brow. "I'm Dave. I didn't say that earlier."

My mouth opened, and a pitiful whisper came out. I clamped my jaw shut, appalled. Up till recently, I'd been running and jumping with almost inhuman athleticism. Now I was like a newborn kitten - weak and mewling. This _sucked_.

I straightened, released Dave's hand. "Mary. I didn't say that earlier either." I shook my head a little, letting the strands fall over my forehead again. Without my accord, my hand went out and gripped the back of a chair, knuckles white from either cold or how tightly I was gripping it.

I waited a second, to see if Dave would pull out my chair. I was gripping the back to keep upright. My knuckles were paler than the coiffed numbers on his letter jacket. _Surely_ he'd do _something_.

He didn't. So I sat on my own, butt settling into the chair with a loud **thump**. Dave ignored me and toddled off to join the line-up at the counter. I stared at his back, dumbstruck. Was he not going to ask what kind of drink I wanted?

_Nope_. I caught a wisp of conversation as he reached the front of the line. He was ordering "the cheapest thing on the menu", which, incidentally, was an XS coffee. Black. No creamers, no flavours, no even sugar.

Jerk. I was so glad he was going to get _exactly_ what he deserved.

Dave sat back down a moment later, his XL chai latte dwarfing my plain little cup. "Here."

I smiled, even more strained this time, and winced as my heart constricted again. My hand flew to my chest.

Dave frowned. "Heartburn?"

An idea sparked. _Maybe_... I looked up at him through my lashes. "No, it's just..." I let my voice wither away. "My heart's giving out. I've only got another couple weeks."

He recoiled, as if a heart condition was catching. I pasted on my very best hurt expression, and wrapped my chilled fingers around the steady warmth of the tiny coffee. I took a sip, savouring the bitterness.

I looked up again, at Dave's face, full of revulsion. "All the time I've got left in this heart is yours, if you want."

I reached out and grasped his hand, my fingers brittle and cold. Drawing his stiffened hand across the table, I put it on my chest, where my heart thudded uncertainly behind my shaking chest. My _squishy_ shaking chest.

I wasn't sure if it was going to work. This relationship was moving a _little_ fast.

But the hand-to-chest thing worked. Dave exhaled, hand pressed to my chest. Looking uncertain, he said "And mine is yours."

I smiled, no longer having to fake the brightness. "Thank you."

I reached out; limbs weighted down, and pressed my right palm over his chest.

Energy coursed through me, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. Dave shuddered, looking as though he was being electrocuted. Pain and warmth rose in my chest, a good ache, like the thousandth rep, when you know you’re done. Dave whimpered, a tiny sound lost in the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop.

Power rushed through me. My fingers warmed, breath came easier, heart raced. There was a jolt, like I'd been kicked in the chest, and my heart stopped.

Just for a second, it stopped. Then it tingled with a rush of energy and started back up again, feeling new and rejuvenated. It was; full of the energy of football boot camp, full of extended cardio exercise I hadn’t done.

I leant back, hand detaching from Dave, who was now slumped in his chair.

I stood; feeling like gravity had been lessened by five thousand percent, and gave him a jaunty wave. My coffee was perched lightly in my other hand, liquid scorching my hand through the cardboard of the cup. Now that my hands weren't as frozen as my heart, I could feel how hot it really was and it felt _amazing_.

Dave was gasping for breath, looking like I had only minutes before. I left him there, his heart pounding in my chest. I felt like I was floating, dancing, shining.

I could breathe. I could move. That was worth everything.


	3. 2.5 Daily News

** Daily News **

**_Captain Of The Football Team Dies Of Cardiac Arrest At Coffee Shop_**

Dave Chaston died yesterday in his favourite coffee shop 'The Bean', of cardiac arrest. The much-loved captain of the football team was on a date with another student when the event occurred. Dave started having difficulty at around 4 o'clock, and the cashier, a fellow student, attempted to perform CPR, but was unsuccessful.

"I just don't understand it," the coroner said. "His heart was perfectly healthy up until the time of his passing, with all doctor's reports coming in normal. But his heart was too small and overtaxed, which led to his cardiac arrest."

The doctors also stated that the veins connecting to the heart were mangled, as if Dave had been the subject of a chop-job transplant. Investigations are still pending.

Dave is outlasted by his parents; Wendy and Peter Chaston. They have requested donations to the Heart and Stroke foundation in lieu of flowers.

We will all remember Dave, and a football scholarship will be created in his honour. May he rest in peace.

_-Tiffany Dwells, reporter for the Daily News_


	4. 3. Meadhbh

It wasn't that hard to pick up and leave after gaining my new heart. I was so hyper and excited, ready to move on. I couldn't _believe _how amazing I felt. It was like drinking a Red Bull with a couple five-hour energy shots mixed in, but without the racing heart and insomnia. And, well, I was _less_ at risk of a heart attack.

I'd packed up all the things from my tiny apartment, not that there was much to pack. I hadn't planned on staying at this school long. Just long enough to get a first heart and move on.

I also hadn't expected it to be so easy, but hey, I was _not_ complaining. Apparently boys were stupider than they looked. And they were a sucker for boobs.

I glanced out the window of the GO train, watching everything zip by in blurs of sunset colours. It being my first kill, I was going home for a celebration. I'd been on my own since I was fifteen, and that was fine. I'm pretty much solitary anyway. But my first kill was a big event – now I got to party.

My sister might be there. Mab. She was about twenty now, with dozens of hearts under her belt. She relentlessly advocated the dangers of putting off getting a new one – our other sister, Maura, had tried to survive on her own heart.

Maura would be twenty-two by now.

Mab had to watch her die. She tried everything, bringing in criminals to appeal to Maura's sense of justice, hot boys, ugly boys, even a few girls, even though there was no guarantee they'd work. _Nothing_ worked. Mab had to watch Maura fade away. Become smaller, frailer, skin and bones. At least it was over fast. Maura hadn’t come until it was almost too late, and broke her arm the day after she arrived. Whatever strength she’d had left went to healing, and there was nothing Mab could do.

I was only ten. I didn’t understand why Maura had come back home. I didn’t understand why she was in bed all day, looking so fragile and sad.

She’d died in Mab’s arms, with me downstairs, thinking my sisters were fine, drawing another picture for Maura to put on her wall. For me, everything was fine until it wasn’t.

Mab was determined not to let that happen to me. And it _wouldn’t_. I planned on for surviving for a long time yet.

The train screeched in at the station, and I hopped to my feet, new energy still humming through me. It felt like my feet were on a cloud, in a buzz beyond even anything a caffeine high could bring.

As always, since Dave, I was nearly soundless as I exited the train with my duffel bag, only stopping once to cuss at a particularly annoying person who kept accidentally tripping me in the line. She should be glad she's female – if she was a guy, I'd half consider targeting her for my next heart. Tripping people is _rude_.

I made my way through the station on bouncy toes, practically leaping with delight. Some crimson leaves had been tracked in by boots and bags, and they skittered in the current of the passing trains, me half-giggling and skittering after them. This felt _fantastic_. It was so far from the trembling of yesterday. It may as well have been a year ago for all I cared.

I hailed a taxi, and ordered him to my mother’s mansion. When he heard the address, he gulped and stomped down the lead foot, swooping through traffic like a deranged bat.

Clearly, he'd dealt with my family before.

I dug through my bag, and pulled out one of many newspapers I had stashed away. Shaking out the pages, I flipped through until I found my proof.

The article on Dave's death.

I had laughed when I had read it the first time. They had seemed so confused as to how their precious football star could have died of a weak heart. They never even _mentioned_ me, past the throwaway ‘classmate date’ line. Apparently nobody had noticed the fact that I had my hand on his chest as he writhed.

Humans. So delightfully oblivious. It made all this so much easier.

I rolled up the newspaper just as we pulled up in front of the wrought iron gates. The cabbie shifted in his seat, not coming anywhere near catching my eyes.

I chucked a wad of cash at him and swung out the door, rolling it back into place with a loud _clank_ behind me. The cabbie put pedal to the metal. I waved at him as he practically flew away, giggling.

The wrought iron gates creaked open behind me, hydraulics letting out a groan. I turned and stalked through the gate, tipping an imaginary hat at the security camera.

The door to the mansion flew open up ahead, Mab’s skinny silhouette shining out. I grinned and picked up speed, boots flying over the ground. Unlike yesterday, I didn’t stumble once.

"Check it out!" I said, waving the rolled up newspaper at her as I skidded to a halt. "Head of the football team, oh _yeah_."

Mab grinned back, and I couldn’t help the joy bubbling up inside me. I hadn’t seen her in person in nearly a year. My family was my life, and I’d been divorced from them for far too long. "Head of the football team? _Nice_! How does it feel?"

"Like I can do anything!" I grabbed her hand and pressed it to my chest so she could feel the steady pounding. Her hand was cool, and I startled. "You due for another one already? What, did you take the captain of the chess club for your last?"

Mab smacked me upside the head, drawing her hand back from my chest. "No, you dimwit. I only did that _once_, stop making fun of me!"

I laughed again, and wrapped her in a hug, my warmth seeping into her. I could feel the slight stutter in her heart, the way it was just a little too long between beats.

I poked her, teasing, grabbed her elbow and started to drag her up the stairs to the door. She snagged the newspaper when I didn’t let her grab my bag. "C'mon, Miss Keep-Up-The-Maintenance-Of-Your-Heart! Tell me you've at least started the hunt."

Mab nodded, rolled the newspaper into a tube and started whacking me with it every other word, for emphasis or maybe just because she was an annoying older sister. "This dude works out every day. Nice healthy heart."

A flicker of worry started in my stomach, and I frowned. "Don't people notice, when lots of athletes drop dead? Of _heart attacks?_"

Mab raised an eyebrow, shook it out with her hard-earned drama school verve, and read aloud. "I just don't understand it," and then in a falsetto "But I'm just going to like, ignore it!"

I shoved her arm, sending her back a step. I smiled wickedly. "Oh! So now _I_ can push _you_ around!"

Still laughing, I sprinted past her, beating her through the door.

I hung my jacket on my hook, and stared for a second, memories prickling. _Coats by the door, take off your shoes, we aren't animals_.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, carrying the considerable weight with ease. Another benefit that nobody had bothered to tell me. I’d thought it was all super-speed and lightning reflexes, but this was even better. I was considering going into weight lifting, if only to get a look at those _real _Olympic specimens.

I mounted the stairs, making my way up the spiralling steps red velvet to my old room on the top floor. It was an old house, one of the aged mansions that lined Toronto’s upper crest. The walls were solid, floors all hardwood, walls lined with Picasso prints, Mother’s latest obsession. They peered down from every odd angle, even creepier than I’d remembered. I wished she’d go back to Van Gogh. The sunflowers added some much-needed colour.

The door didn't creak when it opened – still oiled. My things were as I left them, a hairbrush on the dresser and gold splatters of paint all over the maroon walls. My bed was made, though. Mab must've made it, since I hadn't bothered before leaving, a year ago. I doubted Mother would have cared enough about me to do manual labour.

I let the bag fall to the floor with a crash, wrung out my hands out of habit, and clicked the door shut behind me. It felt the oddest of odds to be home again. I wasn’t the girl who had left for her own apartment a year ago. I wasn’t the girl who could survive in Algonquin Park but not make herself spaghetti. I’d change so much in a year, and then just as much again in a day.

So I ran for my bed, felt my hands hit the sweet spot on the end, and curled into a tuck flip, landing in a little ball and bouncing my way over to pillow. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the quiet air, heart thrumming peacefully. I couldn't quite remember how cold and desperate I was only a day ago. Was it _really_ only a yesterday?

Feet pattered outside my door and I swallowed a smile as I waited for the knock, let myself stretch the length of my bed, open my eyes slowly. The knock came, _shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits_, and there was a second as the knob twisted back and forth, then the door slid open.

I barely got a glance of a pink dress and a shock of glossy black hair before Tulip launched herself at me, three and a half feet of exuberance.

I sat up, caught her in midair, hands flashing out and pulling her into a hug. Tulip was only seven, my youngest cousin. She wouldn't need to worry about hearts for another nine years, but her mother, my aunt Tia, already had her charming the heck out of all the boys around her.

Tulip tightened her arms around my neck, not caring for silly things like letting me breathe. She smelled like baby powder and a hint of her mother’s rose oil perfume. "May! You're all cozy!"

I squeezed her tight, let the little monster know how much I’d missed her. She’d grown so much in the time I’d been gone, gained half a foot, as much hair, and even more energy, somehow. "I know! I got my first refresher, and I feel awesome!"

Tulip let go of her stranglehold on my neck, slid down to kneeling on my now-rumpled maroon coverlet. She pouted, her tiny cupid’s-bow lips rounding out. "I gotta wait nine years for mine! It's not_ faiiiiir_!"

I tossed her to the floor, and she landed in a roll, popping back up to her feet. Sometimes, we teased her about being our little ninja. She’d taken to her training like a fish to water. For Mab and I, it had been more like getting a cat to swim. Hard, tedious, and we all ended up with scratches. "Mum says to come downstairs!"

Aunt Tia wanted me downstairs already? Alright then. I did my own jump and roll off the bed, and gave Tulip a grin. "Race you down!"

Tulip was off like a shot, a blur of childish glee zapping down the hall, rattling all the distorted portraits in her wake and nearly tripping down the stairs. She had always been quick, but now Tulip seemed like a snail. Being sixteen _rocked_.

I let Tulip win by a couple feet, but it would have been laughably easy to beat her. We hit the kitchen at speed, Tulip collapsing to the floor giggling and out of breath. Tia and Mab watched with bemused fondness, heart shaped balloons bobbing above their heads. The bright red foil hearts were like exclamation points for their pert noses, exact tired sigh and call of, "_SURPRISE_!"

I jumped back a step; Dave's heart giving a startled double beat, but then broke into a beaming smile. "I thought we weren't starting till tomorrow!"

Tia chuckled, a deep, buttery sound. It was easy to see why all the men were so taken by her, what with her silk hair and practiced sultry voice. Her father had been Korean, and she took after him, in the way Stealers do. Take the best of both worlds, combine them into a shatteringly beautiful new whole. "Well, that's why it's a surprise, isn't it?"

Mab caught my eyes, hers a deeper and richer version of my emerald green. Deep-sea green, I called them. She tossed me a small package wrapped in gold paper, taped so exactingly down the seams that it looked gilded instead of wrapped. "For you!"

I caught it without looking, tilted it to the light and studied my golden reflection before locating what appeared to be a seam and starting to pick at it. Mab took perverse joy in making sure her presents were as difficult as possible to open. I was thinking some sort of psychological scar from a childhood working for everything. Either you struggled to get something, or it wasn’t worth it.

I got the other side of that – the _hold on tight to what you’ve got or it’ll disappear_ one. I didn’t think either of them was particularly healthy, but I couldn’t exactly go back and rewrite my childhood, could I?

It was a small book, back up. There was a $5 tag on the back, and the paper was pulpy, the kind you find in naughty novels and spy thrillers that send you to sleep. The back was one of those useless ones, covered in oversized glowing reviews from what I was sure were very important people I hadn’t heard about. I flipped it over, confused.

_Poetry For Your Sweetheart._


	5. 4. Meadhbh

I raised an eyebrow at Mab. I thought that poetry was dumb. She had been there for the coffeehouse fiasco of ’10. She knew I hated poetry. In great detail. Underlined. And bedazzled.

Mab just chortled. "For the easiest refresher in history! Just add a sap, and shake well."

Comprehension dawned. "You're kidding!" I eyed the book with fresh eyes. “Thank you!” The gift wasn’t just a five dollar book from a bargain bin. It was for a weekend when I was tired or sleepy and couldn’t get at the energy for a full-on hunt. She was still looking out for me.

Tulip kicked my ankle with all the tiny might she could muster. I pretended to wince. "Hey! What's the secret?"

I crouched to face her, curiosity furrowing Tulip’s tiny brow into half a dozen lines. I handed her the book, let her examine the lurid, badly photoshopped cover. "You know the conditions, right?"

She nodded, tiny head bobbing, and fired it off, bored. "They have to bequeath their heart to you while understanding what they’re doing. Tricking someone into saying the words in another language if they don’t know what they're saying will not be effective."

I poked the cover of the well named _Poetry For Your Sweetheart_. "This is romantic poetry. Wanna bet it has the phrase 'I'll give you my heart' or something similar in there?"

Tulip’s mouth dropped open, and she started bouncing. I grinner back, pressed Tulip’s tiny hand to my chest and mimed falling over dead. Tulip squealed and jumped back, pretending to judder with new energy. “Oh!” Tulip said. “That’s _so_ cool!”

Tia snorted, and Mab bent to pry the book from my ‘dead’ fingers. “I was _going_ to go through and mark all the appropriate pages, but Tia decided to have the party today.” She nudged me with her foot, and I pretended to try and eat it, Tulip shrieking at me with wordless disgust. “I’m _sure_ you’ll be okay with waiting.

I wrapped my arms around Mab’s ankle, hugged it tight for want of reaching anything else. The floorboards were icy against my too-warm skin. "Thanks, sister mine."

"No problem." Mab’s voice vibrated with laughter, and she yanked her feet away, one at a time. “I didn't actually come up with it, Two Hearts Back did. He did a poetry reading."

Tia smiled over at Mab, somewhat patronizingly. She was a purist. Mab was… not. I could feel the judgement all the way from the floor. "Isn't that cheating?"

Mab waved it off. "Nah. Just a last ditch measure, or for us lazies when we don't feel like trying to hunt constantly."

Tia shook her head, amused. "Teens these days." I didn’t know where she was going with that at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but Tia always was a little ridiculous like that. Tia was a hardcore hunter. She lived for the chase, for the cleverness she needed to get those men to give her their hearts. It's a wonder she managed to have Tulip at all.

For a Stealer to have a baby, the father has to have already pledged his heart to the cause. It's harder than it seems. Once the guy says the magic words, there’s an inexorable pull guiding hand to chest. It would be like trying to keep a starving man away from a free buffet.

Tulip smacked my stomach, and I yelped, jerking upright. "Yes, flower?"

"I have something for you too," she informed me. She dug for a second in her pocket before producing a lopsided gold-wrapped lump. Tulip bit her lip, worrying it back and forth. She offered it to me, suddenly nervous. Oh, Tulip. Of _course_ I’d like it.

I took the present, keeping my eyes carefully averted from the corner of cloth peeking out through the ragged edges. I gasped dramatically before I even registered what it was, peeling the paper back with great ceremony.

I was holding a doll. Cloth, with a bit of stuffing leaking out, gappy stitches down the sides. It was a boy with X-ed out eyes, and stitched onto the front of his shirt was a tiny red blob – a malformed heart. It was absolutely adorable.

I flopped onto Tulip, crushed her in a hug. Her miniature arms squeezed back with all of her extraordinary strength. "I love it! Thank you so much!"

Tulip extricated herself from me and rushed to her mother, babbling quietly as Tia scooped her up. “She liked it! I told you she’d like it! Cousin May liked my doll!”

It was the first time in ages it’d really clicked that Tia was a mother, watching her hold Tulip and bop her nose, smiling down at her like they were the only two people in the world. I always thought of Tia as the merciless hunter. We were all complicated. I had to remember that.

Tia shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry to cut the party short, Meadhbh, but I need to get Tulip to bed.”

I looked for the clock as I clambered to my feet. Eight o’clock. Yeah, that was fair. “You’ll make us pancakes in the morning?”

Tia rolled her eyes, turned to carry Tulip out of the room. Already, the little girl was sagging, like being in her mother’s arms meant she could stop trying so hard to be peppy. “Fine. Sleep well, my queens.”

“You know that’s actually _super _inaccurate!” Mab called after her, rolled her eyes right back. “Mother didn’t do her research very well!”

I snorted, joined my sister in watching Tia carry her daughter up the stairs, murmuring softly. Mother had named us after the three names given to the old Irish fairy queens – Maura, Mab, and Meadhbh. In reality, she’d been reading too many fantasy novels, but at least she had tried.

Mab bumped my shoulder. “Okie dokie, sister mine. French vanilla, double double?”

I grinned. This was far better than a birthday party. Tulips tiny little stuffed man made my day. “Yep! Man, I've gotta tell you about my date. It was _really _something.”

I followed Mab as she puttered around the kitchen, regaling her with the tale of the black coffee, extra small. When the coffee brewed, Mab handed me my drink, and we made our way to the balcony. It wasn’t huge, cement freezing as the sun went down, the deck chairs splattered in dozens of different dots of paint from when Tulip went craft-crazy out here. The view stretched out, the patternless pattern of lit windows and lines of streetlights stretching all the way out to the lake.

Sitting on the swing, I huddled close to her side in the cool air, trying to keep her warm. She didn't squirm away, which meant that she's cold. It made my new heart contract, and I laid my head on Mab's shoulder, listening to her breathe quietly.

"So," I said, after a period of silence, twirling the dregs of my coffee in my mug. "Tell me all about your latest Pledger."

She grimaced. "What's to say? Healthy heart, it's a dude, he's gullible."

"How long have you been working on him?" I tried getting at the sugar sludge with my finger, but Mab slapped my hand away.

"'Bout a month. Stubborn git. Think he's almost ready, though."

"That's good, frozen fingers." And they really were. I could feel them against my leg like icicles. I knew I was the younger sibling, but I was allowed to worry about my only remaining sister, wasn’t I?

"Hey!" She elbowed me.

I laughed, and we lapsed back into silence. I still felt uneasy, though I tried to dismiss it. Mab was twenty; she’d been hunting for four years. She knew what she was doing. I could hear Tulip's pattering footsteps overhead, and the soft murmur of Tia's voice. I think she was reading Tulip. The Gruffalo, maybe. That was her favourite. I hoped Tia would sing. Her lullabies were unearthly beautiful.

"How's mother dear?" I asked.

"As far as I know, he's literally in Timbuktu." Mab sounded irritated and amused. Mostly irritated. I didn’t blame her. Mab hated being alone, ever since Maura. She’d moved back from B.C. to live with Mother, just for Mother to pick up and leave. If I didn’t need to learn how to be a solitary hunter, I’d move back in with her in an instant. But I needed to learn while my mind was still open, as I’d learned the hard way with Spaghetti Gate.

I huffed slightly. "Really?" At least she had style. Mother was many things, but boring wasn’t one of them.

"Yeah. Really."

I shook my head. "Oh, mother dear, how you care."

Mab just tilted her head to the side, then shrugged. "Hey, she did leave us Toronto for our hunting grounds. She doesn't want it getting _too_ noticeable." My sister regarded me for a second. “I think you got that from her.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. I wasn't being paranoid. It's just that… athletes didn't usually die of heart attacks unless we got involved. And if their deaths were tracked back to us, well... There were groups out there, Mother had said. Groups who knew what we were and wanted to pick us apart like frogs, figure out what we were, what we could do, how far we were from human.

I wasn't sure if I believed Mab, that we’d be fine, but in my opinion, safe is better than sorry. Better to spread out your hunts than turn into the hunted. I’d spent too long on the hunter end of the spectrum. I knew what it was ike for those I preyed upon. Terrifying.

Soft sounds floated up: muted voices and metallic clanging, overlapping in harmony with Tia's lullaby. I ignored the street party, or garbage truck crash or whatever the hell was going on, trying to focus on Tia.

Her voice rose and fell, so innocent and sweet. It was gorgeous, a sound fit for an angel. Faintly, I could hear Tulip's high childish tone through Tia's smooth melody.

"Roses are red..."

I joined my voice to theirs, hoping it would fly through the window. "Violets are blue..." I tried to blend my voice to the melody, rising in harmony.

A monumental crash sounded from the gate, shredding and tearing and screeching of heavy metal and then what sounded like an explosion. Our joined voices stopped as one, Tulip let out a tiny shriek of terror and surprise.

And then it was silent. For one seemingly eternal moment, it was silent, and still.

Chaos erupted. From the balcony, as I leaned over the rail, I could see an... ice cream truck? Embedded in the wreckage of the iron gate. Men in black and guns swarmed across the pavement like ants, the truck their hill. Tulip shrieked again, babbling in terror and unintelligible syllables until her voice was silence. Echoes pinged off the walls, fading into the sound of clomping boots.

Mab yanked me back from the railing, pulling me inside. I tore out of her grasp easily, too easily, not used to my newfound strength. More men were rushing down the street outside, _dozens_ of them.

"Meadhbh!" she hissed, and for a second I thought she said _save_. And it hurt, because right now, that was the one thing I couldn't do. Save her. "Meadhbh! They're coming for us!"

I whirled on her. "What? How? You said you were being careful? And you _never_ mentioned people out to get us! That was _fairy tale_!" I gestured to the balcony, where the tide of men was still visible. "There's clearly someone out to get us!"

Mab just shook her head, bouncing from foot to foot, what little colour she had draining away. "Mother must've known, she's as far away as you can get."

Mother had known? And hadn’t told us? No. I wouldn’t believe that. Mab grabbed my wrist again; hands corpse-cold, and I ran after her. I didn’t know who was dragging who. We ran through halls and down stairs, through a bookshelf door and down a flight of stairs set flush with the wall until we reached a tiny room. The panic room.

I wrenched my hand from her grip, Dave’s heart was pounding like it wanted to leap from my chest and find its original owner. Something was wrong. "Where are we?"

"Panic room. Tulip and Tia are in the one under Tulip's bed. It's lined in engraved lead, so they won’t know it’s there."

The front door shattered and I swear the house shuddered in its foundation. Heavy footsteps pounded across the ancient floors, rattling louder than my heartbeat.

I heard the front door shatter, and heavy footsteps came into the house. I jittered away from Mab. "We have a panic room? How is that helpful when they know that we're here? How does that help us live? We can't survive being shot in the head or heart!"

Mab grabbed my arm again, her fingers still so shockingly cold. "Please, Meadhbh. I can't lose you too."

I stood there, flickering back and forth half steps. If they didn't find us, they'd keep looking until they found someone, and our little flower was so much easier to find than we were. She would scream if she was shot. She would cry if she was scared.

I heard phantom singing in my ears, Tulip's soft voice and slight giggles and I made up my mind. She was a _child_, our little baby girl, and there was no way in _hell_ I was letting them get her.

Tipping my head back, I screamed at the top of my lungs as I bolted up the stairs. I heard a slight sob behind me, and Mab followed.

The footsteps grew closer, and I tried to shove Mab back down the stairs to the safe room. "Please," I whispered. "You can survive this."

Her hands, frozen but strong, locked around my wrist. And I couldn't make her let go. I tried one last time to get her to safety, but the men thundered into the room and I was too late.


	6. 4.5 Subject A

** Acquisition Of Subject A – Stealer Species Overview Included **

After a large number of athletic human males suffered inexplicable cardiac arrest, a search was mounted for a nest of Stealers. Stealers are a supernatural sect of females that – after acquiring a pledge of devotion from a human – can steal their heart. The male’s heart is somehow removed and replaced with a failing one, presumably the Stealer’s own. It is not known if they switch hearts more than once, and since there were many casualties in the greater Toronto area, a large retrieval squadron was dispatched. Sightings and deaths were entered into a database, and a likely location was extrapolated.

Upon arrival, the house was confirmed as occupied by sounds of what the soldiers described as "unearthly chanting, like some sort of [...] ritual." Soldiers said that there was more than one voice in the melody, but were unable to distinguish the exact amount of Stealers contributing.

It was hypothesized that this was a small nest, so the retrieval squadron entered. The house was extremely large, so the squadron members were forced to spread out. Some rooms looked like they had been occupied recently. One room had been empty for approximately a year, but contained a recent overnight bag. A further room had stuffed animals in it – it is assumed that a child was living in it until recently. Records are being searched for a kidnapped female child around the age of eight, as Stealers younger than sixteen have never been reported.

The soldiers apprehended two Stealers that appeared to be siblings. One appeared around twenty years of age, the other sixteen or seventeen. Both received shots to the foot, but they both healed, surprising the soldiers and giving the creatures an opportunity to attack, though only the younger one took advantage of this. The two seemed to be having an argument – primitive as they are, they seem to have mastered small pieces of English. Several squadron members were taken out. "They were like trapped tigers," one surviving soldier reported. "The younger one was trying to get the older one out. It was [...] amazing how they fought."

The Stealers have rudimentary understanding of how to manipulate humans, as the younger one held several solders at gunpoint. The elder Stealer seemed unduly drained at this point – it is hypothesised that the age may affect their healing, though older Stealers captured in the past didn’t have any evidence of this issue. As always, more information is needed.

Using English, the younger one [hereby referred to as Subject A] made an agreement with the soldiers to not kill any more of them if they would let the older one [Subject B] Go.

The soldier that held Subject B had a few observations. "It was [...] weird, she felt like a walking corpse, all [...] cold." It is not known if the soldier was simply intoxicated at the time, as Subject A had a normal, if slightly high, core temperature. Again, more information is required if we are to gain a solid understanding of these creatures.

Regrettably, Subject B was let free, but Subject A was acquired and is currently in custody. Stealers appear to have tear ducts, as Subject A was trying to clear her eyes of some contaminant before she was tranquilized.

Subject A is in holding cell 67 on level 3. It is recommended that Subject Naythan be put on guard and observational duty, as he has been immune to Stealer interference in the past.

_-Dr. Francis Reed, PhD_


	7. 5. Naythan

**PART II**

**SUBJECT**

"It might look human, with arms and legs and a head and a heart, but don't believe for a _second_ that it is."

_-Dr. Caleb Simeon, head of Stealer Research_

_  
_

I was chilling in my room watching the Avengers for the fiftieth time or so when the knock came. 11 AM, the first call of the day. The scientists were slipping. On an assignment-free day like this, I’d usually be woken around four because they couldn’t figure out how attach a file to an email. Oh, the perks of being the only technologically proficient resident in the Stealer Research Compound.

There was a third knock, and as if it was third try the charm, the scientist swung the door open. I paused my movie as Francis Reed, PhD, walked into my cell, scratching his gleaming bald dome_. _“Ah, Naythan. You didn’t answer, so I thought…” he trailed off, leaving me to finish his thought.

“…thought I wanted to enjoy a peaceful morning?” I suggested, and rolled my eyes back over to my TV, Thor frozen mid dramatic hammer swing. “Yeah, I was doing pretty well at that until you invited yourself in.”

He sighed, a vastly put upon sound. Doctor Frances “Babysitter” Reed, PhD, was well used to my antics. He’d been hanging around the SRC since way before I got here, and was one of the only scientists left that had taken part in raising the kid that had been dropped off in a basket by the front door – yeah, I had been an interesting child. "You have a new long term assignment, Naythan."

I rolled my eyes back to his shiny head, considered whether or not I would be allowed to turn it down. I’d just finished re-encrypting the higher-up’s file systems after Doctor Simeon, the head of Stealer Research, forgot his password again. "Oh. That’s great."

An eyebrow went up, and I had to restrain myself from making a comment about Spock. All of the hair that should have been on his head had migrated down to settle in his fearsome eyebrows. It was an impressive sight. "You should be happy. Weren't you complaining about the inconsistencies of your sleep schedule?"

Scientists. Couldn't he have just said, "You hate waking up early on random days for boring assignments, so we decided to make it more interesting." There _was_ such a thing as too much education. Case in point: ninety percent of the residents in this compound. They analyzed their carrots for carbon content.

I glanced back at Thor, still in overdramatic midthrow, and sighed loudly. I’d hoped that I’d be able to finish the movie all in one go for _once_, but I should have known that was impossible. I hauled myself out of the chair, accepted the folder from his outstretched hand. "Yeah, yeah."

I turned the folder to face me, the same recycled beige that every other folder here was. I kept telling them they needed to colour code the folders, but no. The scientists seemed content to mix everything up and hand the wrong people highly confidential information.

The folder wasn't very heavy, which was a surprise. What kind of long-term assignment was this, anyway? I was a programmer, not an airhead with an air horn. My assignments usually came in folders full to bursting with a year’s worth of complaint reports that were just now being looked at. Technologically forward, this place was not. I had no idea what they’d do without me. Accidentally drop all their files onto the internet, probably.

Curious, I flipped the folder open. I had to fumble to catch the single report before it slid onto the floor. It was a field report, signed off by a dozen of the metal monkeys, stapled to a photo of a girl about my age. She had flaxen blond hair curling into her face and startlingly green eyes set in porcelain skin. Her eyes almost looked older than the rest of her face, wide and deep, like she’d seen… Things. Yeah.

The girl was also grinning wide enough to make my heart skip a beat, and by the angle and slight grain, I could tell it was a selfie. Maybe they’d hacked into her phone? I might’ve been the only programmer on site, but they might’ve hired an outside hack job if they decided the info was beyond my paygrade. Still, it was just a girl.

I folded the photo out of the way, and read the title of the document out loud. "Acquisition Of Subject A – Stealer Species Overview Included.”

I slammed the file folder back closed, glared up at the scientist, his arms crossed over his chest nonchalantly like he didn’t see the problem with this situation. "Tell me you're not stupid enough to keep a Stealer alive. _In the compound_." Did I need to spell this out for them? Stealer equals evil. Stealer on the site where we stored all our important information and scientists equals BAD IDEA.

Dr. Francis 'Stupid' Reed, PhD, grimaced and looked away. Classic avoidance. The TV caught his eye, and his expression morphed to a confused frown. “Haven’t you watched this movie before? Who is that blond man? That hammer looks inadequate for combat.”

I grabbed the remote and hit the power, stepping sideways so Dr. Frances “I’m Dumb” Reed, PhD, would have to see the full extent of my unimpressed expression. "Yes, I’ve seen it before. It's my favourite movie. And if you're trying to change the topic, I'm not buying it."

He sighed and massaged his temple. Clearly, I was giving him another headache. In this case, he deserved it. He had to have _some_ idea of how stupid it was to have a budding Stealer in the middle of the SRC, then. We were supposed to _research_ Stealers, read field reports and angst over old recordings or something. Maybe kidnap old ladies, like Subject Terabithia. Not… girls. How did they even know she was a Stealer? She looked far too young. "Yes, we have a Stealer in the compound. Her location is in the file. You're her new best friend."

I scoffed. Stealers don’t have friends. And me? As _if_. I wasn’t trained for this sort of situation, the… incident aside. Not to mention I didn’t know how to talk to people that weren’t stodgy old scientists. "Sure. If you want me dead, there are easier ways to do it, you know." I could think of at least three ways he could kill me, right now, so I didn’t have to do this assignment – hit me over the head with the TV, slit my throat with the file, or maybe just flash me to death with the reflection off his skull.

As if he could hear my thoughts, he scowled. "Look, Naythan, you're the only one immune to their wiles-"

"I'm _not_ immune," I said, for what felt like the millionth time. This was a really overdone argument. "I'm just not stupid enough to say the words.” _My heart is yours_, likely the most dangerous phrase in human existence. One simple sentence, and a Stealer would smile while she ripped your heart from your chest. “Unlike the other guards. And I actually paid attention when you told me where to shoot to kill. Doesn't take a genius."

Dr. Francis 'Idiot' Reed, PhD, levelled another glower at me. “Don’t be difficult, Naythan. You’ve been given a job, and you don’t get to skip out on it just because you pretend that you’re oblivious.”

With that, he turned and stalked out my door, slamming it after him. I scowled at the door. I wasn’t _pretending_ to be oblivious. I was just… sheltered.

I stared at the file. The file stared back at me. What choice did I have? This was my job. If they wanted to take me off the programmer ranks and stick me in a babysitting job, there was nothing I could do about it. If I threw too much of a fit, they’d just give me a pay cut and I’d _still _have to do it.

I let out a breath, air escaping with a slight groan. I gave my refurbished cell one last look, tried to banish the thought of jumping right back into bed. The door seemed to taunt me, and I addressed it with no small amount of vitriol. "_Fine_."


	8. 6. Naythan

The Stealer was strapped to a table in a cell on level three, one of the medium ones without a single piece of furniture in it. It was for the dangerous prisoners, the ones that the scientists worried would be able to kill us or kill themselves if they got their hands on so much as a blanket.

I couldn’t help but think it was lonely looking, even though I tried to strangle the thought in its tracks. My cell, while technically a cell, had a sofa and a TV and a bed and everything. I even had a closet full of junk, which wasn’t really a plus but it was normal, at least. The Stealer’s cell was barren, and I was feeling like a total stalker standing behind the one-way glass and staring at her.

She looked human. Human and _young_. The last Stealer was a forty year old who moved like a predator. Every breath had been almost unnoticeable – if you weren't looking closely, she didn't look like she was breathing. She was waiting for you to make a mistake, and when you did, it would be your last. Subject Terabithia, I think.

I'd killed her six months ago, nearly to the day. I could still feel the gun in my hand, the sleek heavy metal…

But this girl was heaving in short fast breaths and her face was all twisted like she was having a nightmare. Even though I _knew_ she was a Stealer, she just didn't _feel_ like one. Stealers were dangerous, were monsters. I couldn’t quite connect that with the girl on the other side of the glass.

She twitched again as I watched, her face twisting and head falling to the side, curls of her bright blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. I caught a whisper of sound, a plea for help distorted through the speakers, leant forward to make it out. "_Mab, Mab, please._"

I turned to the scientist watching her, busily scribbling down notes into what looked like his diary. He was a mousy little man, hunching down into his lab coat like it would protect him from the cruel, cruel world. "Hey."

He jumped like I'd hit him with a cattle prod, springing upright so fast I thought he’d break his spine with the shock. And the scientists said _I _was overdramatic. "_Aiee_\- uh... Yes?"

I snorted, took another look at the girl whimpering on the table. She looked shrunken and broken, barely a hint of the grinning girl I’d seen in her photo remaining. "Who's Mab? She keeps calling for them."

The scientist shrugged himself back into his coat, a turtle back into his shell. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. "Dunno. She calls for a Maura too. Either she's a fan of Irish mythology or the other creatures somehow had enough intelligence to name themselves." This last part seemed to amuse him. "Imagine that – a creature naming another creature. It's like a family of parrots!"

That disturbed me. Did they really think the Stealers were that different from us? From what I'd seen, they looked and acted pretty similar to us ordinary humans besides, you know, the heart stealing stuff.

From what I’d studied, Stealers were basically women with supernaturally tough muscles, bones, and immune systems. Their power lay in their heart, like they were draining from it? A lot of the science was estimation in pretty packaging at this point. Either way, they needed to replace their heart with a healthy one once it wore out. The trade was simple – an idiot would say the magic words and they’d zap his heart straight out of his chest. Gruesome, but effective.

I took another look at the room, at the girl having a nightmare strapped to a table, at the heart monitor showing the valleys and mountains of her heart. _Blip. Blip. Blip._

We didn't even know if it was _her_ heart. Being so young, she could be recently transformed (with no evidence of young Stealers, the scientists were leaning towards vampirish turning of humans instead of reproduction) and never have even stolen a heart. I hadn't heard it outright, but I got the feeling they were hoping to rehabilitate her. Somehow.

She was young, she was pretty, and they were hoping she was an idiot. Sort of like me, only less human and a prisoner instead of a guest. The Stealer let out another word, escaping through barely parted cupid’s bow lips. "_Tulip?"_

I leant back into my seat, trying to dispel a wave of what felt like guilt. We got the innocent gardener. Fantastic. This was going to end _so_ well. I settled in against the glass, waiting and watching. This was going to be a long, long day.


	9. 6.5 Subject A

** Subject A – Actions Upon Waking **

When Subject A regained consciousness, she immediately tried to escape her restraints. Though her strength was considerable, my precautions were made useful, and she was unable to break free. Once Subject A realized this, she began to spout expletives. It is unknown if these were accidental or if the subject still has human qualities left over from her hypothesized transition.

**NOTE: This is a reminder of how little we truly know about the Stealers. If they were once human or have human-level intelligence, the way we treat them should be altered to compensate for that.**

When the subject calmed down enough to allow visitors, Subject Naythan entered the room and attempted to engage Subject A in a pre-prepared lesson: the alphabet. See note above – the Stealer was already aware of the alphabet, for she listed the letters out without looking at the chart and then refused to cooperate any further. Records are being searched to see if she, or any of her nest had been apprehended and taught this. So far, it seems that she learned it elsewhere.

When Subject Naythan attempted to engage Subject A further, she threatened death (of herself and others) if any more questions were asked, Her rant (surprisingly eloquent) forbade topics including, but not limited to: how she came to be a Stealer, information about her nest (point of interest: she referred to them as her family. We’ve catalogued the information that nests are often family groups), and how many hearts she had stolen.

All in all, she has been quite informative, regardless of her lack of cooperation. This lack will be accepted, as we do not wish any deaths upon our staff or our subject. Subject A is a valuable acquisition, one of the most talkative and informed subjects in the history of the SRC. Further, she is the youngest, and will aid our research on the progression of the Stealer condition. This is a rare opportunity to learn, as we might be able to rehabilitate the subject and possibly even cure this abominable condition.

On the subject of special conditions, Subject Naythan's genetic engineering seemed to be in effect, rendering him immune to Subject A's charms. In light of this extreme success through resistance to multiple Stealers, more modification trials have been ordered. Although it will take a good number of years to see the results, it’s better to start now and jump the schedule forward by a couple of years. We’ll have to hope the new trials won’t be a group of tiny psychopaths in the works. The first groups were bad enough.

(SEE FILE: AIDEN AND AARON)

(SEE FILE: BRADY AND NAYTHAN)

(SEE FILE: CLAY AND CULLEN)

**NOTE: Requesting information on why Subject Naythan isn’t Subject Banner or something else starting with B. **

**ADDENDUM: Caleb Simeon overrode naming protocols to name Naythan. Reason unknown.**

After Subject Naythan left Subject A to her own devices, there was an anomaly. Although the room had been cleared of allergens and irritants, Subject A's tear ducts came into use approximately a half hour after Subject Naythan entered. Further study is required. When Subject A experiences heart failure (estimated approx. 6 months if treated), permission is requested to dissect her cranium.

_-D.C. Handler_


	10. 7. Naythan

Funny thing, it isn’t nice to wake up with an airhorn to your ear. I groaned, my eardrums, skull, and probably a good portion of my grey matter trying to rattle out of my skull. A hand shook my shoulder and I flailed in that general direction, batting it away. I burrowed deeper into my covers only to have them ripped away.

I rolled off the bed and into the floor, glaring at Scientist Handler – the buffoon from the day before. He still had his diary with him, and was managing to take notes while waking me up with an _airhorn_. Was that seriously an air horn in the other end of his pen?

"Work time!" he said, grinning like the maniac he was. Every vestige of submissiveness and fright was long gone, like a good long night of watching a girl flip out and swear at him had chased the fear right away. "Subject A is awake and unrestrained."

I hauled myself to my feet before that last bit hit home. I froze. "Wait. You set her loose?" I didn't tell him he was nuts because it had proven useless the day before, but it was close. They were all absolutely bananas. Off their collective rockers. “You actually let her loose?”

Scientist Handler just nodded and scurried back out the door, the scratching sounds of his pen on paper wafting behind him in the hall. I crashed back onto my bed, tried to ignore the siren song of the covers as I stretched, back popping uncomfortably. After spending all yesterday sitting in a chair either a) watching the Stealer from behind a mirror or b) trying to teach said unimpressed Stealer the alphabet, I was sore. And annoyed.

If they had given the Stealer free roam over her room, it wouldn't be long before she lured some doofus in, stole his heart, and booked it. And if she killed a man – with _video evidence_ – she would be on the 'shoot first, ask questions later' list. And those haunting green eyes would go flat and dark.

I shook my head, like that would send the bad thoughts flying out my ears. _Don't forget she's a monster, Naythan._

But still. Those eyes weren't the eyes of a killer.

_Shut up, hormones._

I dressed myself in record time, paying little attention to things like food or the still-paused Avengers I hadn’t managed to get back to yesterday. In what felt like seconds I was out the door and racing my way through the maze of halls. I reached the door to Subject A’s observation room and had to hang onto the doorframe, heart racing, panting. I needed to start jogging, this was just embarrassing.

I knocked, and the door creaked open. Another generic scientist peered out, squinting at me for a good thirty seconds before waving me in. I squeezed myself through the crack in the door and beheld the revamped observation room. Machines clicked, and screens after screens jumped with every kind of data known to man. There was also a game of Pac-Man, but the dude was on level ninety-seven so I didn’t interrupt.

Subject A was sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room, eyes closed, hair falling gently past her shoulders. She was wearing the standard issue tank top and sweatpants but by the way the pants sagged, I could guess they’d removed the tie. Didn't want her to... hang herself? What exactly was she going to do with a _sweatpants tie?_

Not ready to face her, and not wanting to disturb her peace, I placed my palm against the glass and just stood there for a moment. Watching, like a creeper. I needed a better job, I really did.

She didn’t make a sound, but as I watched, a tear slipped down her cheek. She swiped at it, movement jerky and angered. The scientist that had let me in frowned and swiped a few screens on the interface. I caught a glimpse of some charts and percentages, the word 'allergen'.

Oh, my god. They thought she was allergic to something in the air? I'd read the reports – I wasn’t an idiot. That must've been her sister back there, and she was crying. _Crying_. Monsters don't _cry_.

Before I could think better of it, or think about it, period, I'd punched in my code and swung the door open. I stepped through and slammed the door behind me, the horrified cries of the idiot scientists dying as the lock clicked shut.

For a second, I felt pretty smart. Then the girl looked up, and her furious and betrayed gaze was worse than being stabbed, even tempered through a sheen of tears. She was going to kill me. I was going to die, and I was going to die knowing that I couldn’t even jog down the hallway without getting winded.

But she just... closed her eyes again?

I frowned. She still didn't attack me. Or try to flirt with me, either. I couldn't decide if I was offended or delighted. Carefully, _carefully_, I lowered myself to my knees, still tensed. Nothing. I coughed, hid mouth in my hand. "Hey, um... Su-"

Her voice came out, dry as bone and knife sharp. "If anyone calls me Subject A one more f-"

The air horn sounded from the other room, drowning out the rest of her not-so-family-friendly word. She took a deep breath, eyes still closed, trying to rein in her anger. Her jaw was clenched so tight I was afraid her teeth would explode. "More time, I will kill _everyone_ that enters this room for the rest of eternity."

I gulped. "Uh..."

One eye slid open a crack, looked me up and down, then slammed shut again. A hint of a smile flickered on her face for a split second. My mouth dried out, and I gulped again. I couldn't _believe_ she wasn't killing me, I seriously couldn't.

I eased down from my heels to my butt, settling myself cross-legged across from her. "So... What's your name, then?"

She still didn't open her eyes, and I wanted to scream. Didn't she want to know what was going on around her? If _I _was a captive, I’d be trying to find an escape route. If I was a Stealer, I would attempt to seduce the heck out of anyone who came near me. I would at least _open my eyes. _“Um,” I said again, for a lack of things to do. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t respond, so I reached a hand out to poke her shoulder. With uncanny quickness she slapped it back at me. I gaped. Okay, so she _was_ aware of what was going on around her. I _liked_ this girl.

_No, you don't. She's not a girl. She's a monster._

I tried again, third time’s the charm and all that. “Do you have a name? I mean, you don’t like…” Her eyes narrowed, though she didn’t open them, and I backtracked. “You definitely have a name, I’m an idiot. What is it?”

I waited, tapping my fingers against the floor. The concrete was rougher than the concrete had been in my cell, studded with flecks of brown rock. Shockingly, she didn't volunteer anything. I ventured again, my best guess from the names she’d been whispering in her sleep. "Is it… Maura?"

The shove came out of nowhere, rocking me back. I jumped to my feet, hissing in pain. I backed away. "Okay. Okay. Clearly that's not your name. Sore point. Okay." I repeated the word 'Okay' a few more times, more to reassure myself than her. She was pretty chill for a girl that had shoved someone with her eyes closed.

"Okay," I said, one last time. "What's your name?"

She opened her eyes, and again I just wanted to stare. But I didn't, because she was a monster. Even if she was gorgeous.

_Focus._

Her eyes were hard green emeralds, resolved. She curled in on herself, hugging her legs to her chest. Her voice was crystal clear, no slurring, no hesitation. "I'll tell you my name if you give me my coat."

"Your coat," I repeated stupidly. Okay. She knew English. But… coat? Maybe that hadn’t been the word she was intending to say. Either way, I was way confused. “Um.”

She looked at me. She was not amused. "My coat. Leather, hanging on the hook by the door. There's no _way_ you didn't grab all the stuff you saw."

"I wasn't there." I pointed out. “I was sleeping.” Well, watching Iron Man, but I had pretended I was going back to my room to sleep.

She closed her eyes again, and I felt myself buckling. It was so disconcerting for her to be blind, but still able to know what was going on around herself. It was pretty freaking amazing, too. _I_ wanted to be able to do that. "Okay. Fine."

I turned to the door, the edges of which were still weirdly invisible, and shouted at a scientist – which one, I didn’t particularly care. "Hey! Did they find a worn leather coat on a hook by the front door?"

There was a pause and then a speaker crackled into life, spitting static like I’d personally offended it. "Yeah." He didn't sound enthused – even less so than usual, which was impressive.

"Bring it in." I glanced back at the girl, still curled in on herself on the floor. She looked a little more relaxed now that there was a chance she could have a tiny piece of home. My heart twinged.

A lengthier pause. I could all but hear them arguing. Pac-Man guy was probably going to get distracted and have to start over, which was a shame. Finally: "Is that authorized?"

"I'm authorizing it. As the head observer guard person in charge of-" I glanced at the girl, whose eyes were open again, regarding me. She looked contemplative, curious, like she was wondering why I would do something for her. "-the girl."

A sigh crackled out. Briefly, I wondered if they were just going to lock me in here and leave it at that. Two problems solved. No more annoying Naythan Smith stirring up trouble, and no more interacting with the Stealer. Just as I was starting to consider it for real, the speaker crackled back on and an extremely grumpy voice muttered an affirmative.

I tried grinning at the girl, but her eyes were closed. Again.

Sigh.


	11. 8. Naythan

Around twenty minutes later, I got bleeped by the speakers and made my way to the door. It hissed open just enough to admit a worn black leather jacket and a shaking hand. I scowled at the hand as it retreated, and mouthed _It’s about time_ to where I knew the scientist were watching.

The door was slammed shut with more force than was strictly necessary.

I walked back to the girl, hand outstretched. Her bright eyes flickered open, and she yanked the jacket from me. She whipped it up and around her shoulders like a cape and had it on in seconds. She'd obviously worn it countless times before, from how soft and worn it had felt when I’d passed it to her.

She settled into the safety of her coat, rubbing her arms and that’s when it occurred to me that she might've been cold. This cement-and-glass room wasn’t as cozy as my converted cell, where I had heating and furniture and a carpet. Yep, that's me, Naythan Smith, home schooled (if you could call an underground compound ‘home’ and crazy scientists ranting about isotopes ‘schooling’) programmer living in a cell in an underground compound. I wasn’t weird at all.

I didn't want to prod her, but it was getting close to lunch, as my stomach was helpfully reminding me. I’d skipped breakfast to panic about her, and I was starving. I coughed into my fist, hoping something subtle wouldn't bring doom down upon me.

She tilted her head towards me, birdlike. "Do you need a cough drop?"

I started. It was _ridiculous_, but I couldn’t help but be surprised she knew about such a… human thing. The longer she stared, her eyebrows flattening to something truly and deeply unimpressed, the stupider it seemed. Surely Stealers coughed, got sore throats. I was being ridiculous.

The Stealer girl laughed, a tiny cough of a sound. She was not-smiling smiling, like the cat that ate the canary. I almost smiled, but squashed it down at the last second. I think I ended up looking constipated.

She stood, slower this time though still incredibly graceful. She moved like a dancer. Did Stealers dance? "My name is Mayve."

I tried that out. Key word: _tried_. My brain wasn’t syncing up properly with my mouth. I think it had something to do with her unrelenting stare. "Masie?"

This got another flattened eyebrows look. "_Maayyyve_."

I tried again, telling my brain to whip itself into working order. "Mayve?"

She sighed with an air of long-seated irritation. I got the feeling I wasn’t the first person to have issues pronouncing her name. Her mother must’ve been a tyrant to name her something so weird. "Close enough."

I took a wadded up sticky note and crayon out of my pocket (Pencils are 'too pointy') and paused right before touching it to the paper. I didn't want to offend her further and risk getting castrated. "M-A-Y-V-E, right?"

This merited a groan. "No." She rattled off the letters so quickly that I ended up just confirming it started with an 'M', and scribbling that down.

"Slower? Please?" I pleaded.

She actually smacked her forehead with her hand, striking a comical pose. Then she rattled off the letters again, this time a hair slower. I stared at her, helpless.

She rolled her eyes, her entire being screaming exasperation, then reached out for the paper, her hands brushing mine. I couldn't help but recoil a little, and she snatched her hand back as if it had been burnt. She didn’t meet my eyes, but her shoulders had collapsed in.

I smiled sheepishly and offered the paper and crayon to her in an open palm, as if she was a horse and I was feeding her a carrot. She took them, still moving slowly, trying not to spook me. Her fingers tickled my palm as she struggled to grab the thick barrel of the crayon, and a laugh sputtered out. I clamped down on it, but it was too late. She was already half-smiling at me, and she was _adorable_.

She leant over her crossed legs, crazy flexible, and I had to avert my eyes or risk getting an eyeful of uh... her chest area. She scrawled her name quickly across the paper with a crayon, practiced ease confirming what I already knew. She could read, write, and talk. She wasn't a stupid little gorilla or whatever it was the scientists seemed to think she was. She was human with a little something more, and that was all.

Finished, she flapped the sticky note at me to get my attention, about as patient as I was when someone interrupted the Avengers. I snatched it up, held it close to examine it. Her name was scrawled in all caps in the thick red crayon I’d given her. MEADHBH.

"Medby?"

Palm and face connected. Again. At this rate, she was going to give herself a concussion. "_Mayve_."

"I like Medby better." I told her. If it wasn’t me talking, I’d have said it was almost… flirtatious? But that was ridiculous. I didn’t flirt. I didn’t know _how _to flirt.

Meadhbh just flicked her wrist at me. She was almost smiling, her lips not pressed tight enough to disguise her amusement. "Just go. Your stomach's going to try and eat me if you don't go."

I laughed, and levered myself to my feet. I felt like a bull in a china shop after witnessing Meadhbh’s effortless grace. "Do you like lasagna? I can send some down."

She grimaced, like lasagna was the worst part of getting captured by the Stealer Research Compound. Meadhbh had pretty weird priorities, that, I was learning. "Got any burgers?"

I shrugged. I didn’t love the cafeteria choices either, but I was a growing boy. If they wouldn’t put in the extra effort to make _me_ a cheeseburger after weeks of whining, there was no way they’d make one for a captive Stealer. "Lasagna or air."

Meadhbh sighed, did another dismissive hand flap that had me grinning without reason as I knocked on the door so the scientists could let me out. "Lasagna."


	12. 8.5 Subject Naythan

** Subject Naythan – Experiencing Anomalies **

D. C. Handler has submitted an erroneous report yet again. He claimed that Subject Naythan was experiencing no anomalies, that he was impervious to Stealer influence, but recent evidence proves otherwise. The video feed in cell 67 shows Subject Naythan experiencing concerning anomalies. He was consorting with Subject A; even laughing and making deals with her. This was not the expected behaviour, and it is _completely _unacceptable.

His genetic sequencing has not been in question since his birth; indeed it seemed reaffirmed by the other Stealer prisoner (Subject Terabithia) six months ago. The Project Unattached subjects were designed to be immune to Stealer wiles and pheromones, and as the lone successful subject, Naythan seemed to be the perfect example of a project gone right. His recent behaviour, along with concerning reports that have been surfacing as of late, have called his genetic modifications into question. Of course, this called for testing.

(SEE FILE: BRADY AND NAYTHAN)

(SEE FILE: PROJECT UNATTACHED)

When Subject Naythan was asked to submit a blood sample, he resisted, prompting security intervention in order to keep him still. The subject seemed suspicious of the reasoning behind the sampling. He has been far too complacent of late, and that is entirely my fault. I have allowed him far too few assignments and far too many freedoms. This will be looked into, and the incident will serve as a reminder to us that he has no idea of his Subject status.

**Note: His files have been reviewed and the following excuse reaffirmed – Naythan was left on the doorstep of the compound on the day of his birth and we took him in because we didn't want to take on the complication of trying to get him to child services.**

Subject Naythan’s DNA will take a few weeks to be properly analyzed. Until then, it is advised to keep the subject under observation. The cameras in his cell will be turned back on. Locations are noted in his full file.

_-Dr. Caleb Simeon, PhD_


	13. 9. Naythan

I glared at the wall in my room – no, cell. Because that’s what it was, no matter how nice they made it. A cell. My arm throbbed, and I could still see the oversized needle filling with blood. I’d always hated needles, ever since I broke my arm at eleven and had to tote around an IV of painkillers for a couple days.

I had no idea what the hell was going on. They wanted to test me for something? Something _what_? Last time I checked, I was perfectly healthy. I had check-ups every three months. I think they would have noticed something weird before now, thanks.

I took the note with Meadhbh's name on it and stuck it to the wall with a toothpick. The drywall crumbled beneath the splinter of wood, but the drywall only had an inch of clear space before it hit the cement. The cell wall.

I scowled at the cheerful red crayon scrawl. Her writing shouldn't have looked like that. It should’ve been spiky, more connected... I didn’t know. It should have looked like the handwriting from a horror film, not like the careless scrawl of a distracted girl. The fact that it was red _should_ have helped, should’ve made it look like it was written in blood. Still, it just looked like it was written with a piece of strawberry liquorice.

I turned away from the sticky note, and stalked out of my cell. The scent of lasagna was still wafting down the corridors, but it was no longer appetizing. I wasn’t in the mood for eating something as red and gooey as the blood they had so rudely extracted from my arm.

I wandered aimlessly, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t sulking as I scowled at everyone I passed. It wasn’t until I heard screaming and blasts of air horns that I realized where I was – right down the hall from Meadhbh’s cell. My meandering sulk-walk turned to a run, and I busted right though the ajar door of the observation room.

Meadhbh stood _right in front of the door_, trying to dig her fingernails into the seam in the glass. The scientists were running around shouting frantically, and the dude with the air horn on the end of his pen was dutifully bleeping out the profanity.

Tears were streaked down Meadhbh's face, and she wasn't making any progress at all. She just looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there.

She was crying, pounding the door and screaming about how scared she was about being in a cell, watched and prodded by strangers. How could they think this girl was a monster? When I couldn't spell her name right, she glared at me and sighed, and made sure to write it in all caps, to drive the point home. She bargained all she could give for her coat, so she could curl around it when she slept through her day.

I wasn't _stalking _her, I just had to review the footage and it caught my eye. She looked human, acted human, practically _was_ human, and we stuck her in a cell? We didn't even know if she'd stolen a heart yet! I was stuck in a cell too. I knew what it was like – not humane. Not in the slightest.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. Heart heavy, I shouted at the scientists, "Hey!" They all froze instantly. It was almost funny. They always seemed scared of me. I was pretty sure teenagers freaked them out.

"She's trying to escape!" Squinty Eyes pointed out, unnecessarily. If he panicked any more than he already was, he’d be blasting into orbit. Man, how had he gotten into studying supernatural creatures if he was scared of his own shadow? “Escape!”

I crossed my arms. "I noticed.” I hesitated a second, watching the hysterical girl whale away at the door, tear-streaked and wild. I sighed, turned back to the scientists. “Why don't you just gas her and move her to a cell where she doesn't know where the door is?" I realized the flaw in that plan immediately. "Actually, never mind that. Just electrify the door from that side." They really should’ve done that already. It was protocol if the prisoner was trying to escape.

The scientists all started moving again, tapping frantically at consoles and surreptitiously shutting down Pac-Man games. Airhorn guy looked disappointed that he didn't have any more expletives to bleep out. The dude really needed to get a life.

Meadhbh jumped back from the door, hissing and wringing her hands. Her hair, previously braided into a sleek braid after she stole the rubber band off the lasagna container, was now puffy and I could've sworn I saw a spark fly from the end.

I winced on her behalf. Everything kept stacking up on the 'human' side. From what I'd read, she had healed a shot foot. So had her sister. If the centre of a Stealers power was their heart, her original heart would be faltering by this point, leaving her more human. It took a lot out of a heart, to be a Stealer. That, we knew for sure.

Meadhbh backed away from the door blinking too fast, her shoulders heaving. She didn’t stop until she hit the opposite wall and slid down to sitting, hugging her legs to her chest.

“Let me through!” I snapped, anxious for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint. Meadhbh shuddered against the wall, hunched farther into a ball. Scientists fiddled with their dials, gave each other nervous looks. “Now!”

Reluctantly, they let the charge drop and unlocked the door, still staring at me with wide frightened eyes. I pushed through the door, went to crouch by her, arm reaching for her shoulders. They were shaking with her breaths, like she was trying to hold back sobs. My hand actually got within a few inches of her shoulder before she batted it away with that same uncanny accuracy.

"Medby. You're okay." I tried to sound soothing, like I was telling her everything would be okay even though I knew it couldn’t be farther from the truth. If she couldn’t be ‘rehabilitated’, survive on her own heart… She wouldn’t last long, either way. Not unless she could make herself human. “It’s okay.”

She took a longer, not as shuddering breath, and cussed at me for mispronouncing her name. The scientist bleeped it out with glee until my ears rang and until Meadhbh stopped talking long enough to stifle her gasping sob, burying her face in her hands.

"Medby, just don't touch the door. You'll be okay. Okay?"

She whispered something unintelligible, but the scientist bleeped it out, assuming (probably accurately) that is was more expletives.

I reached out, moving so slowly it almost felt I wasn't moving at all. My hand landed softly on her shoulder, warmth seeping through the leather into my palm. She stiffened, but didn't try to smack me away again. As the seconds ticked by, her shoulder relaxed ever so slightly. Meadhbh took a shaking little breath, the tension starting to leak away. I breathed with her, trying to push some of my calm into her.

Then, of course, I fell onto my butt when my phone vibrated again. Meadhbh jerked away, skidding back a few inches and huddling back into her wild-animal ball. I cursed, the idiot scientist still bleeping it out. I wanted to smack him. Finally, I managed to wrestle it out of my pocket.

A text blinked on my screen. It was from the info centre, and I realized it had to be info on Meadhbh, because that was the only case I was on at the moment.

I hauled myself to my feet, sighing, and opened the file. What, did they finally realize that she was _crying_, not ‘responding to allergens’? It was about time.

The file was simple, a few pages of biological nonsense with a single bolded sentence at the bottom.

**Heart origin confirmed – Dave Chaston.**

I stilled. Meadhbh stared up at me, eyes full of sorrow. Her arms tightened around her legs. I just stared, numb with horror. She had taken someone's heart. She had ripped it out of someone’s chest and taken it for herself, leaving him to die in agony.

I backed away, stumbling over my own feet in my haste and horror. My hand brushed the door, and I snatched it back with another bleeped out curse, before it slipped open and I ran out of the cell, eyes still locked with Meadhbh's until I stumbled backwards out of the room, towards a cell of my own.

That wasn't her heart, keeping her warm. That wasn't her heart, making her eyes sparkle. That wasn't her heart in her chest, keeping her alive.

_Monster_, my own heart whispered. _Monster_.

I spent a week with the scientists outside the cell, watching Meadhbh. I graduated with my stalkers licence, and went on for a diploma with another week of wavering near the door, snatching my hand back at the last moment.

_Monster_, my mind would whisper to me, over and over again. _She's killed people. Shot the people who came to take her. Ripped a boys heart out of his chest. Took it for her own._

Meadhbh had calmed down over the fortnight, with no rushes at the door, less cussing, and no bargaining. Every other day, they gassed her and took their readings. Her core temperature had cooled, slightly lower than her previous unnatural warmth. Her heartbeat was still even and strong, but there was a slight difference in pace and strength. She was weakening – her supernatural strength and agility was wearing her heart down. _Dave's_ heart down.

I'd read Dave Chaston's obituary in the town’s newspaper. Head of the football team, with all that well loved jargon. I dug deeper, hacking into girls' emails and school records. It was time well spent.

Dave was an asshole. It wasn’t good to speak ill of the dead, but Dave was deserving of a little disrespect. He had been awful to everyone, had an ego the size of Mount Everest, and there were more than a few whispers of what sort of things he did to girls. Definitely not enough to warrant having his heart ripped out of his chest but... I could see why Meadhbh chose him. She was probably trying to do as much good as she could while being inherently monstrous.

I couldn't help but respect her for who she’d chosen. She could've chosen an easier target, a geek, a nice boy. But she chose the worst of the guys, and did what she had to. What little information there was on her in that town (one day of school), it had said that she had to cling to walls and chairs to keep herself upright. Her face was described as being too pale. She had been dying. I almost didn't blame her for Dave.

Over the weeks I waited, trying to summon the nerve to talk to her, Meadhbh's eyes had dulled, the bright gem green fading to the colour of dried out lichen. Some days she exercised, attempting to keep herself fit. Some days she curled up and stared at the wall, where she knew we were watching. Every day, she would add another curlicue to the crayon mural on the far wall, and a tally mark on another. The crayon was a nub now, a tiny speck of red wax. Sometimes, she would stare at the speck in her hands and it almost looked like she'd cry.


	14. 10. Naythan

On the first day of the third week, I finally creaked the door open. It was a staring day, one of the ones where the girl I’d talked to had lost every speck of life. Meadhbh was a breathing mannequin on those days, not even objecting to the tests.

As I entered, Meadhbh jumped to her feet, fists held high. Her eyes sparked back to life, rage and hurt and pain all warring for a front seat.

I held my hands up in surrender. I'd dismissed the scientists, but had to take an airhorn into the cell with me and promise to bleep out any profanity, whether it was her talking or me. They were trying to train her through negative reinforcement. I had scowled at that, _they thought she was an **animal**_, but I promised to honk whenever profanity was uttered.

They were filming, so I sort of had to, but I was annoyed I was about to become what I hated: an airhorn dude.

I tried to smile. It didn’t reach my eyes. "Hey, Medby. Long time no see."

Meadhbh stared, eyes flicking up and down. An eyebrow went up. "Jean shorts? That's just _wrong_."

I crossed my arms, resisted the urge to tug them down. "Hey! I'm sick of sweatpants. And you're one to talk. You've been wearing the same clothes for two weeks."

She scowled, a cute little furrow forming between her eyes. They were beginning to sparkle again, like my entrance meant more to her than a boy to make fun of. "I didn't want to strip in front of the camera, thanks."

Her hair, once flaxen and pretty, hung in lank strands around her face. Three days ago, she’d given up on braiding it. They hadn't risked giving her a comb that she could sharpen into a weapon. I thought they needed to get their heads checked.

I pulled a pair of handcuffs out of my pocket, dangled them by a single finger. For all the warnings they’d given me about not letting her take advantage, I didn’t think she could kill me with a single pair of handcuffs. "Hey, I can take you to a shower if you let me cuff you."

She bit her lip and looked away. I could feel her disbelief through her tight shoulders. I didn’t begrudge her the suspicion – if I was her, I’d probably wouldn’t trust me, too. "Yeah? Assuming there aren't any cameras in there, how am I supposed to know you aren't taking me for dissection after?"

I shook the handcuffs at her and tried to grin winningly. This time, the smile reached my eyes, like she was the thing I’d needed these past few weeks, the reason I hadn’t felt quite right while I programmed all the stuff I’d been ignoring. "Take the chance. Trust me. I got you lasagna, didn't I?"

"That was like three weeks ago!" she protested, but there was a hint of a smile on her face. It lit her up, like the girl of the last few days had been a cheap copy, a paper doll. This was the real thing, and it was amazing.

Meadhbh shed her jacket, then turned her back to me, hands pressed together behind her back. I cuffed them together carefully; loose enough so they wouldn't hurt her, but tight enough that she couldn't slip out. I'd had far too much practice with these. It was amazing how many of the scientists managed to get themselves on lockdown. Most of them sulked their way to containment, but the older ones became pretty peppy when they realized they’d be away from their experiments for days on end. I couldn’t count the numbers of elbows to the face I’d received from elderly scientists intent on doing _one last thing, then I’ll come, I promise. _

It was also amazing (amazingly _stupid_) that they trusted a sixteen year old to be the in-compound police.

It felt incredibly awkward escorting a greasy cuffed girl down the hallway to the showers. The occasional passing scientists gawked, not bothering to hide their surprise. A couple of the dimmer scientists ogled her before they caught our coordinated death glares.

I cleared my throat, trying to break the awkward silence that was muscling its way between us. "So... What are you drawing on the wall? I can get you more crayons, if you want."

A real smile spread across her face, and I wanted to run face first into a wall. Repeatedly. That was wrong. That was just _wrong_ that what made a teenage girl so happy is her jailer offering to get her _crayons_. Freaking _crayons_. The only way she should look like that is if I was to offer her an all-expenses paid shopping trip. Or I don’t know, skydiving, something worth the sparkle in her eyes and the bounce in her step.

Not a shower and a box of _crayons_.

The first shower room we came across was occupied, though the eighty-year-old Doctor Fredrick Gansey hadn’t seen it necessary to slide the _Occupied_ switch by the door. Meadhbh and I exchanged appalled looks, scarred for life.

Thankfully, the next one was empty. I ushered her into the room, holding the door open like a proper gentleman. I also made sure to mark the room as occupied, not wanting a repeat of the earlier disaster.

The shower room smelled warm and damp, a small mirror across the room still fogged over from the last user. Someone had written instructions on how to shower in all caps beside the mirror, in case anyone got confused. I did _not_ want to know the reasoning behind it.

Meadhbh turned in a slow circle, steps careful with her balance thrown off with cuffed hands. She took in the rough concrete, the utilitarian maximum-flow showerhead, the detailed showering instructions. “It’s… um. Nice?”

I turned her around, her shoulder warm under my gentle pressure, and uncuffed her left hand. “Ha. It’s terrible, Medby, you don’t have to protect my feelings.” I moved the empty cuff to the horizontal bar that was securely bolted to the wall. She'd be able to reach the towels, water, and shampoo, but not actually go anywhere. Not actually escape.

I held up a hand. “Be back in a sec,” and I ducked into a side room. They kept all the spare clothes here, the extras that nobody claimed from the bulk orders. Meadhbh was a small, and there were plenty of those. I grabbed a tank top, pair of sweats, and women’s underwear package. I stepped back into the shower stall, _not_ looking at the clothes in my arms. "You want these anywhere?"

Meadhbh gestured to the floor with her untethered hand. Somehow, she managed to look like she was in a photo-shoot instead of a grimy shower stall. "Just drop ‘em."

She waited. I waited. She raised an eyebrow again. "You wanna watch?"

My cheeks flushed scarlet and I scrambled out of the room, barely stifled laughter ringing behind me. Meadhbh told me she'd yell when she was done, still cackling, then I slammed the door. I leant back against the door, tried to scrub the heat off my face. What was she doing to me? I was acting like a goober. This had to stop.

Minutes ticked by. Then more minutes. My feet started to ache, so when it hit the half hour mark, I pounded on the door and yelled at her to hurry up. The water just turned up. Another excruciating ten minutes later, the water shut off.

Ten minutes after _that,_ Meadhbh yelled that she was done. I rolled my eyes as I swung open the door, sarcasm leaping off my tongue. "Oh, already? How-"

My words froze on the tip of my tongue. Meadhbh stared out at my, a hand on her hip, hair tumbling down over one shoulder. My breath caught in my chest, and her teeth gleamed as she smiled, actually leaving it on for more than a half second. The smile, not the shirt.

I needed to think about something else.

Moving on remnants of coherent thought, I fished a comb and a Taser out of my pocket, handing the former to Meadhbh, keeping the latter. "You can comb your hair," I told her, still trying to shove my brain back onto its tracks, "but if you try to murder me with it, I'll tase you."

Her smiled faltered, and now I wanted to Tase myself. "Really? That's what you think I'll do? Try to murder you with a comb?" She slicked a bit more conditioner on her hair, and started tugging on the comb with short, angry, jerks.

I scratched my head with the Taser. "Uh..."

Meadhbh wasn't smiling anymore, and she didn't meet my eyes as she wrestled her hair into submission. Slamming the comb down, she turned away, offering her other hand to be cuffed again. The silence was more pointed than the comb ever could have been. I winced.

"Medby!" I protested. "How am I supposed to know? Everyone says Stealers are evil and they want to kill us all, and you really haven't been doing much to convince me otherwise! You've been smacking me away _with your eyes closed _and have already stole someone's heart-" I stopped myself, tugging on my ear. I wanted a redo. Today was supposed to be a _good_ day, the day I got over myself. "Look, it's not easy, okay? I grew up here."

Meadhbh's shoulders hunched. Still not looking at me, her voice came out strangled. "I had to. You don't know what it was like, to feel yourself failing, your heart stuttering and sometimes there's a pause _just a little too long_ between beats, and you think, _That's it, I'm going to die. I'm going to die because my heart gave out and I'm sixteen and I'm going to **die**_."

Her voice cracked into nothing, and she shook her head, freshly untangled hair swinging. "It's the worst thing you could ever imagine. And then he came to me and asked me on a date. I had to cling to his hand the whole way to the coffee shop, I couldn't keep myself upright, did you know that? And then he bought the cheapest coffee in the shop – those were his exact words – for me. I could feel myself fading and I just _had_ to."

Meadhbh turned to me, eyes snapping with anger and hatred and pain. "Then? He said those words, and I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't. And then he was gasping and I didn't know how to fix him so I just _left_ and the next day the paper said he was _dead_."

She squeezed her eyes shut, hand pressed to her brow, and I watched, horror-struck, as a tear rolled down her cheek. Meadhbh turned away, pressed her forehead to the rough cement wall like she couldn’t bear to look at me. Beads of water still speckled her shoulders like diamonds. "And I'm _sorry_, okay?"

I didn't know what to say. My mouth was hanging open. "Medby-"

"Just don't." she choked out. Her face was pressed to close to the wall I was afraid she was going to scrape it on the rough-hewn concrete. “Just don't. Get me back to my cell. I deserve to be there. Hell, tase me and drag me there."

I stuffed the Taser back in my pocket, wanting none of it. "Hey, Medby, it's okay." I reached for her shoulder, still dotted with water droplets. Her hand jerked as if to slam it away, but the handcuff yanked it back with a clatter. Meadhbh yelped, hurt and startled, pulled her hand in to cradle it against her chest.

I snatched my hand back, not knowing what I was supposed to do. This was progress, right? She admitted to be sorry and not wanting to do it. I should be happy, but I couldn't be with Meadhbh crying with her face against the wall, cuffed to a pole.

I unlocked the cuffs and put them away, ignoring every single regulation in the book and then some. Meadhbh hugged herself with her arms, hair soaking the back of her tank top. She had to be freezing.

"Okay, okay." I said, more to myself. Louder, "Okay. Medby, it's not your fault. You couldn't really help it or- I don't know." I bit my lip. "Okay. _Okay. _I'll take you back, but I won't cuff you. Is that okay?"

It occurred to me that I was using the word 'Okay' way too much, but I shoved the thought aside. I didn’t matter. Meadhbh did, the girl crying in front of me, the one I’d been selfishly ignoring for around three weeks because I was scared. _I _was scared. What a joke. Meadhbh was the real captive here, the one that should have been helped. I was an awful person for pulling back when she needed someone.

Meadhbh turned her head, face wet, eyes brimming. "What?” she bit out, and I flinched back, heart aching. “Why wouldn't you cuff me? I want to kill you with a comb, remember?"

I grimaced, regretting everything. "Yeah, that was a stupid thing for me to say."

There was a moment of silence. The shower creaked despondently, water rushing elsewhere behind the walls. Even inanimate things like water wanted to get the heck away from me.

Meadhbh finally turned to me, arms locked around her ribcage. She was trying to hold herself together with her arms and willpower. I hoped it would work. She deserved better than this concrete prison. Meadhbh looked up at me through her eyelashes, managing to look small and huge, hurt and angry and hoping. "Why would you risk it?"

I tugged on my ear again. Why would I risk it? It wasn’t a risk. I wasn’t letting a monster loose. Just… Meadhbh. It was just a girl that had already been through far too much. There was no danger in that. "I'll trust you for the hundred meters back to your cell. That okay?"

The silence shuddered and crumbled to lie in pieces at our feet. Meadhbh sighed gently, nodded. Relief flooded through me, my stomach soaring and a stupid grin taking over my face. I ran for the door, yanking it open and spinning to wave her through. "Ladies first."

Meadhbh smiled, and all was well.


	15. 10.5 Subject Interactions

** Subject Interactions – Subject Naythan and Subject A **

Subjects Naythan and A seem to be interacting more than is strictly necessary. Subject Naythan is supposed to be rehabilitating and guarding Subject A, but not forming a friendship. This is beginning to concern the observing scientists, and D.C. Handler has lodged multiple complaints.

A filter has been set up to remove all of D.C. Handler's complaints and requests from the queue, seeing as he feels the need to submit one approximately every four hours. It is unknown if he has set up an automated drop system, or if he's just extremely stubborn. This interaction will be allowed to continue, as there are benefits. Subject Naythan is no longer investigating why a blood sample was taken, and Subject A has expressed regret for acquiring Dave Chaston's heart. This may be a sign that rehabilitation is feasible.

In the one week since Subject Naythan prompted Subject A to express regret, he has been giving Subject A more and more benefits (such as boxes of crayons, paper, and some light blankets). This has been tolerated on the same grounds the rest of his illicit activities, but he is nearing the line. Much more, and his privileges will undergo sudden restrictions.

Subject A, reportedly twenty-six days after her heart replacement, is starting to experience shortness of breath and lower temperature in extremities. The original estimate for how long Subject A will survive on her current heart is being revised to 2 1/2 - 3 months. This is concerning, as we were counting on having an extended period of time to analyze Stealer behaviour and anatomy. All current studies will be accelerated.

There have been some worrying results coming in from Subject Naythan's DNA analysis, which is proceeding on schedule. Until it is completed, Dr. Francis Reed, will be put on inactive duty due to his participation in the Unattached experiment that produced Subject Naythan.

Project Unattached, launched eighteen years ago, was concerned with creating soldiers that would be impervious to Stealer influence. This was in preparation for the near future when Stealers are likely to become apparent to society at large. As such, preparations must be made. Three batches over three years of two male embryos each were created.

The first batch, Aiden and Allen, were both stillborn. The techniques were adjusted accordingly, and the second batch consisting of Brady and Naythan were born live and healthy. The third batch, Clay and Cullen, were also born without any difficulties. Unfortunately, Brady, Cullen, and Clay, experienced an identical malfunction: they were unable to experience any kind of empathy or guilt. They were sociopaths, completely unsuitable for the tight-knit communication requisite in Stealer retrieval units. As such, they were terminated at the ages of ten, nine, and nine respectively.

Subject Naythan is the only successful result of the project, and is therefore vital to the continuation of Stealer extermination initiatives. It must be determined what has gone wrong, or we lose our only advantage over the killer women.

_-Dr. Caleb Simeon, head of the Stealer Research Compound_


	16. 11. Naythan

I had been worrying about Meadhbh. She wasn’t looking so great.

I mean, she still looked gorgeous, her eyes still sparkled, when she smiled, I still... Anyway. Meadhbh’s skin was a little too pale. It was barely noticeable, but it was there. She moved a little slower, less of her eerie supernatural grace colouring her steps. Her breathing was deliberately steady, like she was trying just a little to hard to keep it even. Sometimes I caught her with a hand over her heart, mouthed numbers on her lips as she tried to convince herself it was beating steadily.

I was worried. Meadhbh seemed so _eternal_, like she would be hanging around in the cell near mine and making fun of me and making me laugh for the rest of our lives. Her imprisonment was easy to forget, most days, but her health wasn’t. At least not to me.

As had become the usual, I dismissed the scientists, weathered the complaints and guilt about making that one guy lose his Pac-Man level again, and knocked on the glass door. It was open a crack, just enough for Meadhbh’s voice to float out, laced with laughter. "Come in!"

I smiled as I slid through the door and into her cell. Every time I walked in, I was still amazed at how awesome she’d made it look. The once red crayon mural on one wall now had leaves and trees of infinite shades of green, blue tendrils of sky near the top. I had sprung for the massive box, and I was so glad I did. She could draw _anything_ with those things.

Meadhbh looked up from her little cocoon of blankets in the corner, where she was drawing on a blue sheet of paper spread across her knees. The blanket was one of the generic ones, the same beige as the walls, but Meadhbh made the most of it. Snug as a bug in a rug.

And oh, did that give me memories. I’d learned to read off master’s theses and weekly status reports. The first time I’d read an actual _children’s_ book I’d been horrified by the simple words and the weird phrases – why would you ever compare yourself to a bug? It had always been my job to smash the spiders, and I didn’t like it any more than I liked eating my broccoli.

I walked over to Meadhbh and slid down the wall a few feet from her. Her hair was dangling into her face, strands escaped from their braid. It was golden and healthy again now that I was taking her to the shower at regular intervals. I was amazed at everything this girl could do – how much a difference the smallest thing could make. She never stopped getting more beautiful. "What are you drawing?"

Meadhbh angled the paper away from me, furiously shading. Her nails were getting longer, and I wondered if she cared. Or if she’d want nail clippers, nail polish. There was still so much I didn’t know about Meadhbh. I _wanted _to know about her, but she wasn’t exactly giving me a lot of opportunities. The second I’d mention her family or what she used to do before she was captured, she’d fall so silent it would put a clam to shame.

I fake-tried to see over the edge, and she kicked me in the shin. That was one thing I _did _know about my new best friend. Meadhbh was proprietary about her artwork and rabid about keeping it secret until she was done. I didn’t know if that was an artist thing or a Meadhbh thing. "No peeking! I'm almost done."

I let out a massive sigh, flung a hand across my eyes like a silent film star. "_Fine. _Have it your way."

Meadhbh granted me a slight smile, eyes still focused on her paper. It was dazzling, but that wasn’t what I liked about it. I liked how absent it was, like Meadhbh was so used to me being there that she didn’t think about me as something _other_ anymore. I was just… there, and that was her normal.

I tilted my head back, eyes travelling the elegant lines of Meadhbh’s mural. It was fascinating, the detailed way she’d shaded everything, the inexplicable detail in every shape and curlicue. For a second, I thought I caught a glimpse of a raven, wings outstretched, but I blinked and it disappeared into a wall of purple vines.

I turned my eyes back to Meadhbh just as she slapped her crayon down, and all I could think of was _mic dropped! _She was certainly grinning proud enough for that. "There!"

She held out the paper, black crayon all upside down. I took it carefully, not wanting to smudge the wax, and turned it in my hand. Soon as I could see it the right way around it clicked and couldn't help a soppy smile.

The drawing was of me. Meadhbh had gotten my face down to a T, my distracted half smile and hand tugging my ear. She’d captured me in clumsy crayon better than any picture ever had, like she’d examined my soul and slapped it down on the paper in cheap wax. I reached for her hand, curled my fingers around hers. I managed not to recoil at the chill; her fingers were _freezing. _I squeezed her fingers tight, tried to tell her with my eyes and my heart how much it meant to me.

People didn’t tend to do a lot for me. This… this was my favourite thing I’d ever been given.

I scooted closer and started rubbing Meadhbh’s hands, trying to warm them up. She stared at me, eyebrows furrowed and fingers stiff, but I felt her fingers uncurl between mine. Again, I was reminded of trust. Meadhbh trusted me, and I didn’t know why that made me want to smile wide enough to blind the sun.

We sat like that for some minutes, my hands wrapped around hers. I didn’t care how cold my fingers were getting as long as hers were a little bit warmer. The room was quiet around us, the cell empty of anything but coloured walls. It was freezing in here, it wasn’t just Meadhbh. My cell, though bereft of reasonable amounts of heat, was warmer than this.

Then I had an idea.

I hopped to my feet, dragging Meadhbh up with me. She resisted for a second, grumbling about the effort of standing up, but soon followed. I grinned. "I've got a great idea!"

She raised an eyebrow – skeptical, but still trusting. My heart skipped a beat. "Do you?"

"Yep!"

Meadhbh waited, and I realized I should probably expand upon that. Though she had many skills, telepathy sadly wasn’t one of them. "Right! I think we should go to my cell- sorry, my room, and watch the Avengers."

Meadhbh laughed. It wasn’t a giggle like bells or whatever teenage girls were supposed to sound like. Meadhbh had a full, rich laugh, one that bubbled up from the happy part of her soul. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No, really!" I told her. I knew I looked ridiculously earnest. "I've watched it a million times, but you haven't." I'd asked her earlier. "Plus, I have more blankets. And a sofa."

This seemed to sway her. Meadhbh nodded, her eyes still laughing, then tugged at my hands. I looked down and realized I was still clasping her hands. I let go immediately, face flushing. Meadhbh turned away too, and I thought I could see a bit of red on her face too.

I got the door open, and gestured through. So sue me, I had manners. Chivalry wouldn’t die until I did. "Ladies first!"

Meadhbh snatched up her jacket and ran out through the door before I could so much as ask her to wait up. She was fast for a girl on the edge of bed rest. Some days, I wanted to sit on her until she agreed to rest because she was trembling and furious at herself for not being able to sprint and flip and enter the Olympics. Other days, she could fly down the halls with the best of them. I was glad today was a good day.

I'd taken her out of her cell before, and I trusted her now. She hadn't shown any signs of trying to escape or any interest in killing anyone. And really, I was bribing her with a movie and a sofa. No way would she skip out on those. 

I trotted after her, calling out directions. The halls were empty, the scientists holding yet another _We Don’t Know What We’re Doing, So Let’s Complain And Eat Donuts_ meeting. "No! Left, you turn left!"

Meadhbh doubled back, leather jacket flapping, and I guffawed. She snapped around for a second to glare at me, eyes disapproving, then continued down the hallway – just a _little_ slower than the last time I’d let her out. I tried not to think about it. I directed her through turns, doing my best to remember which way we were going. I got lost a lot, but I could _not_ do that right now. Meadhbh would never let me live it down.

Meadhbh stopped in front of my door, and my eyebrows lifted. "How'd you know it was mine?" She pointed to the nametag on the door, which read NAYTHAN. I laughed sheepishly and tugged on my ear. "Right. That."

I reached for the doorknob, got halfway there before catching sight of Meadhbh’s tired eyes. She was leaning just a bit too much towards the wall. Bypassing the doorknob, I grabbed her arm, and she angled in towards me for a perfect second before pulling herself back upright with a snap. Her face closed down, smile gone. "I'm _fine. _Open the door."

"Medby-" I tried, but she just shrugged off my hand, arm shaking slightly. Her muscles were tensed, like she was either scared or it was hurting to keep herself upright. I didn't like either option. 

"_Medby."_

She yanked the door open herself, but overestimated the strength needed to open it, and ended up stumbling back into me. I caught her, and I could feel her heart in her chest, feel how much it was struggling. Heartbeats were supposed to be steady, right? Her heart was having none of that, stuttering and starting a different rhythm every few seconds.

Meadhbh ducked out from under my arm and staggered over to plunk herself down on my sofa. Her breathing was even, but her breaths were heavier than they should have been given how little she had been doing, and her hand was oh-so-casually laid across her collarbone. I knew she was counting her heartbeat, matching it up with a glance at the clock. "Cue it up, Okay Boy."

I hit play on the remote – I couldn't remember a time when the Avengers _wasn't _in the player, and asked, "Okay Boy?"

"It's your favourite word, isn't it?"

"Oh, be quiet." I puttered around in my mini kitchen, filling two socks with rice (why I had rice, I don't know, but I didn't particularly care) and tying them off at the ends. When I stuck them in the microwave, Meadhbh craned her neck, trying to see what I was up to.

I threw a blanket at her head.

She didn't actually swear – Airhorn Guy having pretty much broken the both of us of the habit – but she mumbled things that I was pretty sure were insults. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing?"

I clicked the remote again over my shoulder, and the Marvel logo started flipping by. Meadhbh quieted, intent on the screen. She seemed fascinated with the technology, and my heart sunk a little, as I realized that this was the first time she'd been allowed near any sort of entertainment like this since... I didn't even know. I hadn't thought of it before, and I felt _awful._

She didn’t even have books in her cell, and here I was complaining about my fifty inch TV. All Meadhbh had was _crayons_. I resolved to bring her over more. It was the least I could do.

The microwave beeped, startling Meadhbh from her reverie. "What's that?" In answer, I slung the two socks at her. One landed in her lap, and the other hit her in the back of the head.

I plopped myself on the sofa next to her, tried to wrestle the blanket out from where it was tucked under the edge of her legs. She leaned in and put all her weight on it, so I ended up just throwing my hands in the air and getting myself another blanket, as well as another blanket for Meadhbh, who was still shivering a little.

She never asked for anything, not since her coat. Meadhbh had the pride of a lion, and I wished she didn’t. If I knew what she wanted, I could get it for her At the moment, I was stuck guessing. The shivering in silence was infuriating, painful. I wrapped the blankets around us, and shoved Meadhbh's hands under the heating socks. All the hours I spent getting distracted on the internet were coming through for once.

Meadhbh let out a little sigh of relief, and shoved her hands deeper into the creases of the socks. "That feels _amazing. _What are these things? They smell like popcorn."

"They're called 'Cozy Rosies', I think. I looked up stuff for your hands, since they're cold, you know," Another ear tug. My ears and cheeks were burning. "And some girl on Pinterest said her mother always made those for her when she was cold."

Meadhbh bumped her shoulder with mine. "Thank you."

I settled into my sofa, heart glowing. That one thing, one tiny thing, had made her happy. That made everything worth it. 


	17. 12. Naythan

The credits were a shock after the action-packed movie. Meadhbh tried to stand, strong again after her rest, but I pulled her back down next to me. Meadhbh huffed, but she was still smiling. I elbowed her gently, leaned in like I was sharing a big secret. "Wait! There's an extra scene!"

She settled back into the sofa, snuggling back in beside me. Our hands brushed again under the heating rice sock things – my hands had gotten cold about halfway through the movie. It totally wasn't for any other reason. Nope. Not at all. 

_Shut up, hormones. _

We turned our attention back to the credits. They rolled. And rolled. And _rolled. _Meadhbh scowled at the screen, turned her head enough to give me an exasperated look. "Can't you skip straight to the scene?"

I could, but I didn't want movie night – well, movie afternoon – to be over so soon. Meadhbh was surprisingly warm beside me, her heart probably finally stable for the first time in ages given this relaxation time. She would never have sat still for this long in her cell. Maybe if she did this kind of thing more often, her heart would last longer.

That wouldn’t be Meadhbh, though. She was a perpetual motion machine. Not because she had to be – there was no energy build up or crazy Stealer condition – she moved because she wanted to. She wasn’t happy unless she was twitching around or focused on something.

Meadhbh leant against me a little more, and I grinned down at her. Nothing like forcing someone else to hate the things you hate. It was the one true joy of life. "Nah. Don't want to accidentally skip the scene."

Meadhbh snorted. She knew exactly what I was doing, and didn’t approve. "Uh huh. There's no way movie night will become a regular occurrence."

I elbowed her again, grin widening. I was glowing inside, hyped up on nervous energy. I’d managed to get past an entire movie without screwing anything up. "Hey! Are you turning me down? I thought this was a pretty good first date."

Too late, I realized that was the wrong thing to say. Meadhbh became silent and still, her breath hitching. The only other dates Meadhbh would have been on would have been hunting trips. Like the one where she killed Dave. How could I have been so _stupid_?

Before I could think better of it, I curled my arm around her, doing my best at comfort and reconciliation. She stiffened under my touch for the first time that afternoon, and I died inside. "Medby, I'm so sorry. I was joking."

A sob rose out of her throat, and Meadhbh wrenched herself away from me, launching herself from the sofa, still gripping my red wool blanket in her fist. It almost looked like she wanted to strangle me with it. "Take me back to my cell."

I stood as well, hands turned palm up, reaching for her. I needed to make this right – I couldn’t leave her feeling like this. I was such an idiot. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say something wrong."

Meadhbh made a hurt, disbelieving sound, and nearly tripped over the blanket in her haste to flee. From me. I felt like the worst human in all of history. "Just take me back!"

I held threw my hands up. What was I doing wrong? "Medby-"

"My name isn't _Medby!" _she shouted. It was a full 180 from her earlier coziness and trust and I just didn’t understand. Was what I said really awful enough to make her crackle with anger?

My anger rose to meet hers. Why was she shouting at me? I was on her side! I was trying to help her, had done nothing but these last few weeks. "Sorry, _Maizie_.” I snapped, regretting it even as the words spilled from my mouth, “I'll take you back!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

We stood there for a moment, her diamond bright eyes staring into my bemused ones. It almost didn’t look like she was breathing; she was so hurt and angry. I opened my mouth to say something, probably another 'FINE!', but Meadhbh's eyes slid a little out of focus and she swayed. Just a little, at first, but then her eyes fluttered shut and I reached for her, too far away. My anger was forgotten. “Medby?”

Her eyes shot back open and I was about to step closer, try to say something else, but her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged to the side, muscles going limp. Her name tore itself from me as I lunged forwards. "_Meadhbh_!"

Her head made contact with the carpeted concrete with a sickening crack, my hands a second behind her. I was too late to catch her, but I threw myself to my knees, snatching her head up from the floor. Her head lolled in my lap, and I pressed two fingers to her throat, and completely panicked for a second before catching a thready pulse. Wincing slightly, I pressed a palm to her chest, trying to feel her heartbeat without interfering too much with... the rest of her chest. There it was; a weak throb against the pads of my fingers. It should have been pounding steadily, even beats marking time like it used to.

_It's not even supposed to be in her chest. It’s someone else's heart. No wonder its not working_.

I shove the thought aside. It wasn’t Meadhbh’s fault. Her own heart was failing, and Dave's heart bought her another month, at least. Another month where she met me, where we laughed and talked and watched movies and I gave her crayons and watched sunlight pour from her smile. Dave had been a world class jerk and Meadhbh was making more use out of his heart in a month than he could have done in his entire life.

Meadhbh gasped, twitching in my arms, and I yanked my hand off her chest in a hurry, moving to brush her golden hair off her forehead. It was down, ever since she yanked out the braid halfway through the movie. Her eyelids fluttered for a second before opening, her emerald eyes staring up at my dark ones. I smiled down at her, nervous. My heart was beating double time, as if to make up for the fact that her heart couldn’t. "Hey."

Meadhbh blinked a few times, trying to focus on my face. My heart hurt watching her so weak, so at odds with her insane strength from her first days – so at odds with the vibrant girl she really was. "Does your head feel okay?"

She tried to lever herself up from my lap, but she hissed in pain and sunk back. I patted her shoulder, fingers twitching. I didn’t know what to do. I knew how to shoot a Stealer dead, but I couldn’t help one pick herself up off the floor. "_Ow."_ Meadhbh said, with feeling. “My head.”

"I'm sorry," I told her, fingers still absently combing through the ends of her hair. It was silky. "You just... passed out. Your pulse is all thready."

She bit her lip, managing to swallow her pain enough to sit upright. I kept my arm carefully around her shoulders, keeping her upright. "Is it really that bad? Your heart?"

"It feels like it’s trying to brake, to stop. To run from me,” she said, voice so quiet. It wasn’t Meadhbh, stealer and bravest girl I’d ever met talking right now. It wasn’t my Medby, sweet and trusting. It wasn’t even the girl-shaped thing of fury I’d met what felt like aeons ago. This Meadhbh was the Subject A the scientists had wanted: broken. “It feels like even my own heart hates me.”

"I'm so sorry," I said again, at a loss for words. I didn’t know what to say. It was a horrible thing to think about yourself, to say about _anyone_. I couldn’t bear that _this_ was what she thought of herself. She was so much more than her heart. "I am _so _sorry."

"You didn't make me like this." Meadhbh told me, and there was a shadow of something on her face. I thought it looked like regret. "At least I won't have to hurt anyone else, here."

"Medby, you can't _possibly _think..." I trailed off. Think what? What could I say that would change her mind? Meadhbh had clearly thought a lot about what she was saying. "Medby, you aren't a bad person. Terrible things have happened to you, and you couldn’t help it. You did the best you could, and I respect you for that. Hang on, okay?"

"Okay." Meadhbh repeated, but it was only a whisper. “Okay.”


	18. 12.5 Week of Disaster

** Week Of Disaster – Subject A Experiencing Difficulties, Disturbing Information Unearthed About Subject Naythan **

The week of disasters had been one catastrophe after another. Another week later, we are still far from solving the problems. They seem to compound as we try to solve them, becoming worse and more prevalent by the day. 

The tip of the iceberg is the obvious problem of Subject Naythan falling for Subject A. He does not seem to be under any influence other than his own stupidity, so that should be slightly reassuring, at least. One of our other discoveries has made it _imperative_ that he does not pledge his heart to Subject A. If it is discovered that Subject Naythan is beyond help, he may need to be terminated. Subject A cannot be allowed to gain his heart under any circumstance.

Footage from cameras in his room reveal him taking Subject A on a "first date", and going to great effort to make sure she is comfortable. Each day, he becomes more and more brazen about his efforts to woo Subject A. His efforts must be curbed, as he may prove vital to our studies on the Stealer species.

Yes. It has been confirmed – Stealers are an entirely separate species of humanoid. While they are similar, there are multiple marked difference. They are entirely female, for one, though they reproduce with human males. Their genetics do not seem diluted by this, though we are examining the concentration of certain DNA strands in samples from Subject A and years past. It has also been confirmed that Stealers exude a toxic brew of pheromones that seem exclusively tailored to the human male. Further, these Stealers have different muscle tissues that are considerably more endurable, as long as sturdier bones and a brain that has a radically different structure. There is as least one lobe that does not seem apparent in humans, and this may be the organ behind the heart swapping. Their chest cavities are also restructured, with the connecting veins and arteries all but swimming in stem cells. This is likely how they adapt to the different hearts without going into rejection.

Most concerning of all, in coalition with Subject Naythan, it has been discovered that Stealers can also produce the occasional Stealer/human hybrid. Years ago, the compound attempted to conceive a hybrid after a captured Stealer revealed their existence. After many trials and just as many failures, everyone assumed the lauded hybrid was not but a myth. After all, the Stealer captive hadn’t been in her best mind. Claims about a hybrid that’s heart would provide a Stealer functional immortality for months were considered the outlandish rantings of a delirious Stealer.

(SEE FILE: PROJECT HEART.)

Subject Naythan is a Stealer/human hybrid, likely the only one of his kind. This explains a great many things about his behaviour, and about the disparity between his behaviour and the behaviour of the other Project Unattached Subjects, who were all terminated due to their psychopathy. We assumed Subject Naythan was an outlier on Project Unattached, when in truth he was an unadulterated, unexpected success from Project Heart.

Thankfully, we have discovered how the mix-up happened. Doctor Francis Reed, PhD, confessed under duress. He had been intoxicated, ruined one of the Project Unattached Subjects the night before the in-vitro implantation. Fearing punishment, he substituted the last viable embryo from Project Heart, fully expecting it to fail. This abject disregard for protocol and common sense means an dishonourable discharge from the Stealer Research Compound. Under ordinary circumstances, this would mean an execution or a memory wipe of the time he spent with us.

However, seeing as the idiot doctor isn’t the only problem we’re dealing with at the moment, we’ve come up with a solution to both problems. To recap: Subject Naythan's heart needs to be kept in his chest, and Francis Reed needs to be dealt with. As well, Subject A is deteriorating faster than projected. At her current rate of vascular deterioration, she has days at most.

At 10:00 AM tomorrow, Francis Reed will be offered a deal – die by live dissection, or be victim of the resident Stealer. Unless he somehow wishes to become lab rat for the over-eager biology department, this will give us the unique opportunity to observe a Stealer actually stealing a heart, as well as allowing us to observe what happens to the victim. Subject A will be available for observation for another month or so, and Subject Naythan will be out of danger for the time being. Francis Reed will not be a liability. Everything will be dealt with.

_-Dr. Caleb Simeon, head of the Stealer Research Compound_


	19. 13. Naythan

**PART III**

**HEART**

"Giving away a heart can hurt... Having a broken heart can be life threatening, even to the strongest people. But, receiving one is the greatest gift."

_-Unknown_  


One week and one day after Meadhbh's collapse, they moved her to Medbay. Her breath was laboured, her heart stuttering like a racehorse running itself to death. I held her hand as she slept. Meadhbh had been sleeping a lot, lately. It was killing me, watching her fade. She had been so bright when she was first captured.

_Captured._ We had captured this girl, and now she was spending her last days with strangers, being observed like a science experiment gone wrong. She should be with her family. We knew she had a sister, at least. A sister she loved. Everyone had a mother, even Stealers. Even _I _had a mother, though I’d never met mine. I hoped Meadhbh’s mother was better than mine, the brilliant lady that had dumped her baby on a bunch of incompetent scientists.

Meadhbh’s sister was wonderful, from what Meadhbh had told me of her. Her name was Mab, and she was a twenty-year-old barista that ran poetry readings on the side. Mab sounded so normal, like stealing hearts was up there with poetry smashes on her schedule. It broke my brain.

I stared at the heart monitor again, watched the lines jump and- they were quickening. She was waking up. Meadhbh's fingers tightened around mine as I looked back at her, and I tried so hard to smile. "Hey, Medby."

Glittering green eyes surveyed the room. Unlike the rest of her, they were full of energy. "Hey, Okay Boy. Another day?"

My heart cracked a little as I kept smiling, but I ignored the pain. She deserved at least a smile to start off her awful days. "Yeah. You've got at least another day."

"Good." Her voice was paper thin, cracked and sore. I held a glass of water to her lips and she gulped it down gratefully. The clock flashed behind her, quarter past ten in the morning. A month ago, she would be doing push ups and glaring at the wall by now.

A month ago, her heart wasn't giving out on her.

Meadhbh handed me the glass back, and I put it down on the floor. They were still being ridiculous about furniture with Meadhbh. According to the scientists, she was well enough to put a nightstand through the glass wall. "Help me up?"

My smile faltered. She was so _tired_. Why couldn’t she just rest? "Medby-"

Her voice got stronger, along with her death glare. Even half-dead, she could skewer me with her eyes. "Prop me up on the pillows or I'll kill you with a comb, Okay Boy."

I laughed a little at that. Gently, _gently, _I slid an arm behind her and helped her sit up, fluffing up the pillows behind her. Meadhbh settled into her new position, colour returning a little to her cheeks. I could almost believe that this was just a lazy day if I ignored the machines behind her that were cataloguing her path to doom.

"Okay!" I said, trying to be upbeat. "What movie do you want to watch? I've got Iron Man, and Thor."

For a split second, Meadhbh looked like she wanted to laugh or cry, like _I'm spending one of my last days on earth watching Iron Man? Really?_ I squeezed her hand tighter. "I know. And I'm sorry."

Her hand, so chilled, gripped mine with its old steel grip, and I tried to pretend it was the good ol’ days. Any minute now, I’d try to teach her the alphabet again and she’d cuss me out so soundly I’d be prying expletives out of my ears for weeks.

Before I could crack a joke, the sounds of scuffling leaked in from the hallway. I leaned over on my stool, trying to see what was going on. It didn't sound good, and I didn't want another stupid scientist around my Medby. She was miserable enough without them talking at her about her deteriorating heart.

Doctor Francis "Idiot" Reed, PhD, was shoved into the room, two black clad bodyguards training rifles on him. They were masked, and that was never a good thing. That meant they were in a Stealer Retrieval detail, and whenever those psychos came out to play it means something was going way wrong. I stood, knocking my stool over, and the resounding clatter echoed long enough that I thought the Stealer Retrieval unit might shoot me just on principal.

"What's going on?" I demanded, trying my best to look imposing. I was shaking in my boots, standing between a Stealer and the Stealer Retrieval unit. In any other situation, it would be the last thing I did. I wasn’t sure that situation would be any better. "If you want to experiment on her... You can't. I won't let you."

One of the unit members jabbed the scientist in the back, and Doctor Francis "Not-Gonna-Experiment" Reed, PhD, lurched closer to the bed. He looked like he was going to be sick, his left hand white knuckled around a cell phone, face pasty and terrified. “I- I will-“ He choked on his words, stumbled a step closer. I abandoned any pretence at looking like a bystander, settling into a defensive stance. He was not getting anywhere _near _my Medby.

One of the Stealer Retrieval members came out of nowhere, tackling me to the wall. I went flying, head cracking into the wall. My heart picked up, the man’s sour breath gusting over my face. I struggled, got nowhere. My arms were pinned, and he was way too strong. Meadhbh screamed, voice rasped to sandpaper. "_Naythan!_"

I gave another fruitless buck, tried to head-butt the man holding me to wall. He dodged easily, and my already aching head snapped back. "_Meadhbh_!"

The man chuckled, body shaking with mirth as if my attachment to Meadhbh was positively adorable. I was too frantic to consider how many men he’d have to pry off Stealers in the past. I wasn’t like that, though. This was different. "Chill, buddy. She'll be fine."

I tried to knee him, tried to get him to move enough to let me see Meadhbh but he just sighed and slammed by head against the wall. I dropped like a stone, my head killing me and vision blurred. My heart jumped up my throat and I doubled over, coughing until it slowed to something nearing normal. I straightened, my vision clearing, to see Doctor Francis “Crazy” Reed, PhD, advancing on Meadhbh’s bed shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “I- I…”

I shoved the man aside, and with a grumble he let me forward a few steps, keeping his arm barring the way forward. "Don't get any funny ideas," he warned me. "Let it happen."

"Let _what _happen?" I snapped.

Somehow, even over the frantic beeps of the machines, Meadhbh’s rasping cries, my shouting, I could hear Doctor Reed. His mouth moved, everything freezing as the words fell from his mouth in slow motion. "I... I give you my heart."

Everything stopped, my mouth going dry. He didn't. He _didn't. _Dr. Francis Reed, PhD, spoke the magical, horrible words. _I give you my heart_ was the one thing you could never say anywhere near a Stealer. It was the equivalent of blood in the water – hell, it was the equivalent of putting yourself through a shredder, tying yourself up in ropes of fish guts, and interrupting a Shark Week broadcast.

Meadhbh cried out, a glassine cry of pure pain, and her hand flew unerringly towards his chest. Her heart monitor went crazy, the heartbeat soaring like he’d dropped a match onto a pile of gunpowder Meadhbh had been trailing for weeks.

Meadhbh ignited, screaming and flailing, bucking out of her bed. Her other hand went out too, smacking her first hand out of the air before it could connect with his chest. Meadhbh was fighting herself, writhing, trying to stop herself from doing what her body demanded, tears flooding down her face.

She was yelling, screaming, crying, and I could hear the words now. “No!” Meadhbh was crying, “No! I won’t I _won’t_!” She sounded frightened out of her mind, tiny and terrified. I fought the man again, got slammed back into the wall. My heart was a hummingbird trying to escape the cage of my chest. “I won't kill anyone else I _said I won't _get him away from me, get him _away!”_

Meadhbh sobbed again, clutching her hand to her chest. She turned her tear-glossed eyes to me, pleading. "Naythan _please!"_

I barrelled past the guard, ignoring the surprised burst of profanity, and reached Meadhbh’s bed before she could scream again. Her hand went against my chest, but I hadn't pledged. My heart was my own, as far as Stealer magic went. Her hand fisted in my shirt like she wanted to reach right through it to the sobbing man behind me, and more tears tumbled down.

"Medby, Medby _listen." _I said, hand gripping her shoulder. My other hand brushed her hand back. The heart alarm shrilled, but I felt like it was miles away. I could see her, only her, her eyes filled with tears, strands of hair glued to her face with tears and sweat. She was a beautiful wreck. "Medby. It's okay. You're okay. Everything’s okay."

Meadhbh sobbed again, pressing hot and painful against my chest like she wanted to reach through my chest and take my heart by force. I grabbed it and held it in mine. "Medby, it's okay. Just take a deep breath. Hold on for me, okay?"

Someone shouted for me to get back, but I ignored them. I wouldn’t leave her, dammit. Another voice rose above the crowd, shouting for silence and to let me stay. I loved them, whoever they were. I pressed my forehead to Meadhbh’s. Her shining emerald eyes were wild with pain and fear and craving, for the heart that was calling to her, only a few feet away. The doctor sobbed silently in the reflection off Meadhbh’s panicking heart monitor. "Medby. It's okay. You need it."

Her voice rose, cracking like a child’s. There wasn’t much sense left in her eyes, just panic and pain. "Of course I need it! But just let me _die, _I don't wanna hurt anyone else I don't _wanna."_

I gripped her hand tighter, trying to keep her with me. Here. "Medby, I know, and I'm so sorry, but you have to. He screwed something up; he'd die anyway. You can make something of his death, make it _help _someone."

The heart monitor shrilled louder, a warning sound now. Her heart rate was plummeting – if I didn’t salvage her soon, it would be too late. I couldn’t lose her. "Okay. Okay. Listen, Medby, I'm so sorry, but I have to. _You_ have to."

And I took her hand, and pressed it to Dr. Francis "Dead" Reed, PhD, chest. Our forehead separated, but I kept my palm on the back of her hand as they both screamed, shuddering like they’d been struck by lightning.

Then Dr. Francis Reed went slack, and Meadhbh let out a gasp. The heart monitor levelled back out, and I saw Meadhbh's eyes flutter shut, breathing easy and deep. The doctor lay on the floor, hands twitching, the phone that had been in his hands skittering away. Someone grabbed me, dragging me from the room, and I watched her as long as I could.

_Be okay, Medby. Please be okay._


	20. 14. Naythan

I couldn't sleep, no matter how long I lay in my dark cell and stared at my closet of abandoned junk. My mind kept going over the scene, second by second, then looping back to the beginning. I had as good as killed someone for Meadhbh. I’d killed someone before, but… This was different. Terabithia had been a monster, a Stealer that lived and breathed hunting. She thought of people like ants. The way Meadhbh had reached out, that hesitation? That was nothing like Terabithia. She had wanted it. Wanted those hearts. Wanted all that death, just to serve her own self-interest.Killing her to protect myself had been just that – to protect myself. She wouldn’t have thought twice about killing me, and I returned the favour.

Doctor Francis Reed, though. He was a person. I _knew_ him. He’d been around as long as I had, had raised me on a diet of pseudoscience and absent affection. I hadn’t had any parents, per se, but if I could pinpoint the one scientist who’d put the most work into raising me, it would have been him. I’d killed him in cold blood.

For Meadhbh. Who was now sleeping peacefully on an actual mattress in her usual cell, smiling as she slept. Her breath wasn't laboured anymore, she didn't clutch at her chest like she was trying to keep her heart inside. In the morning, Meadhbh would be back to her sparkling self; able to leap a building or kill a man with the same sort of effort it would take most people to blink.

Was his life worth it? Meadhbh only had around a month before she started failing again. Stealers drew all the energy and life out of their hearts to fuel their lives. On their own hearts, they’d wither away. Meadhbh had explained it to me in heartbreaking detail what it felt like to have your body fail out from underneath you. She didn’t have a choice – none of the Stealers did. It was kill or be killed. Was it worth it to kill?

Her face flashed in my memory; laughing, scowling, trying to stifle her laughter with her eyes gleaming, shivering in my arms, eyes closed, bright eyes open. 

Yes. That was worth it.

I sighed in the general direction of my broken junk and gave up on sleeping. My computer beckoned from my desk, and I followed its call, sitting in the rickety chair. Something was nagging at me, and I was way too curious a person to ignore it. I hit the power button, settled back to stare at the endless depths of the loading icon.

Dr. Francis "Dead" Reed, PhD, had done something terrible – something worth execution. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t connected to any of the big projects that I was pretending I didn’t know about, and while Meadhbh was interesting, he was more watching and waiting than anything else. So, whatever he did wasn’t recent, but it _was_ recently discovered, as well as still relevant. That narrowed it down.

Hey, what happened a good amount of time ago that was shady as all get out? That was still relevant? Oh, I know. I happened. Being left on the front door was a little _too_ cliché to have actually happened. Not to mention that this facility was underground – not even the government knew about it. Dripping baby me off on the front porch? Not buying that, not anymore. Francis Reed’s death was a push over the edge of suspicion. I like to think I’m not an idiot about the important things.

Okay, fine. I was a bit of an idiot for Meadhbh. Still, I liked to think I was at least marginally intelligent in other areas of my life. For one: computers. Somehow the SRC had forgotten that. Again.

My computer finally powered up, and I went to my special search function – the one that I may or may not be able to search every single file in the facility. As well, I may or may not have been a proficient hacker. All the encrypted files I wasn’t supposed to have access to may or may not have popped up.

Folders scrolled on for eternity, so I narrowed my search bar to projects headed by Doctor Francis Reed, PhD. When that wasn’t narrow enough, I set the timeline to 20-15 years ago. My mouse pulsed every couple seconds, like a heartbeat, scanning my fingerprints over and over. _That_ was real encryption, not like the pathetic stuff most of the files were encoded in.

There were five folders, now. I scanned them, mousing over and reading the little summaries.

**Project Swapper **– heart transplants with rats, boring. It was fifteen years ago, too. I was sixteen. Next.

**Project Tracker **– an attempt to make a program that tracked suspicious heart-related deaths. It crashed and burned in the planning stages. Next.

**Project Amalie **– records on a Stealer captured around seventeen years ago. Apparently, she had some interesting things to say about what the scientists could do with their instruments, among other things. I could respect that. Still, not helpful.

**Project Unattached **– Classified.

**Project Heart **– Classified.

Unattached and Heart were _classified_? This was the search bar of kings. What sort of heavy-duty encryption did they have on these files? They must’ve outsourced. I’d never heard of either of them before, either. That wasn’t a good sign. And these projects took place seventeen years ago?

Well. Looks like I had found what I was looking for. Even though I’d come looking for these, my heart sunk like a stone. I didn’t like being right when it meant everything I’d lived was a lie. I mean, I knew that I was living under a fib, at least. But I’d hoped it was more of a white, “I had an affair here have the baby” lie and not… this.

I attacked the files, setting up one of my trusty old decryptions I usually used to get into outgoing communications. Communications were hard to get into, but they had nothing on these two files. I scowled at the screen. “Oh, you’re going to be like this? Are you?”

The computer didn’t reply, surprising exactly nobody. Ten minutes later, I clicked open Project Unattached.

It only took a couple seconds of reading to feel sick to my stomach. Clay, Cullen, Brady. The other kids that used to live here, when we were all kids. I’d nearly forgotten about them. They’d all left when I was ten, disappeared on the same day. Everyone told me that they’d found good homes.

I’d always wondered why I didn’t get a good home, but I’d always assumed it was because I was the smartest one. I’d assumed the scientists like me, needed me. I never considered that I was the only successful experiment, that the kids I’d grown up with were dead. TERMINATED, sorry, because we were only experiments, not people.

Without wanting to, I could see why. The other kids had been terrifying even when we were just toddlers. Brady, the kid my age, had made it his life’s work to terrorize me. I could remember more than one day spent huddled in my closet, barely daring breathe or he’d find me. Clay and Cullen helped, too, when they weren’t busy stealing rats and knives from the labs. Why hadn’t I remembered this earlier? Was six years long enough to forget my horrific adopted brothers?

The summary was clear, concise. It was a scientific report, nothing less, nothing more. Brady: considered a failure at age ten. Terminated. Clay and Cullen: considered failures at age nine. Terminated. Project Unattached was a disastrous failure, a waste of nearly eleven years of resources. Their attempt to create soldiers immune to the affect of Stealers was in ruins.

I frowned, read through the summary again. Something was wrong. The summary was hastily written, the spacing between the data tables and paragraphs weird, the page numbers wrong. This report had been written in a hurry, and that didn’t make sense. Also, where was I? I read it again, uneasiness curdling in my stomach. I wasn’t mentioned anywhere, though everything about this project fit my suspicions.

I checked the backups, just in case, and there it was. The file was nearly double the size. I turned my frown upside down, grinned at my computer screen. “Gotcha.”

The first thing I noticed about the old file is that it was set out properly – the formatting was correct to the standards of the Stealer Research Compound.

The second thing I noticed was the note at the top.

** _PROJECT DEEMED A SUCCESS AFTER SUBJECT NAYTHAN EVADED ENTRAPMENT BY CAPTURED STEALER._ **

It was dated a few months back. I scrolled and scrolled, my horror growing. Along with all the data on Clay, Cullen, and Brady, there were pages and pages upon data of _me._ My check ups, all sixteen years worth of them. Pages of DNA sequencing, and though I didn’t really know what it was all about, I’d gleaned enough from the scientists that I knew it looked odd. At the bottom, there was even a diagram of hidden cameras in my cell. I’d had no idea I was being watched.

I swallowed hard, forced myself to read everything in detail. And boy, was there detail. How much I’d grown, what foods I liked, how attached I got to the scientists – that’s why they’d left, god. I’d gotten too attached. I understood all of the data, all of the sickening observations that I’d thought were just… me. They even had it down that I tugged my ear when I was nervous.

I understood how much effort they’d put into cataloguing everything about me, but I didn’t understand why they’d deleted me from the file. It made even less sense than genetically engineering a kid. And why wasn’t I a psychopath, like the others?

A notice blinked in the upper right screen. For a second I gave myself a heart attack, afraid they’d caught me spying. Oh. The other file was finished downloading. **Project Heart.**

Okay. I’ll bite. What, exactly, was Project Heart? I needed to find something to distract me from the fact that I was a genetically engineered test tube baby designed to be part of a new-and-improved Stealer Retrieval Unit.

Project Heart was pages upon pages of failures in test tubes.

Subject Amalie had been interesting, after all. When she was tortured, she let slip some information about a Stealer/human hybrid. Stealers weren’t actually a hundred percent female as we thought, then. For one in every couple million births, a Stealer would have a boy that was neither Stealer nor human. He’d be super strong, super smart – not to the extent of the rest of the Stealer race, but noticeable. He wouldn’t need to steal hearts to survive, either. He was the exact opposite of a Stealer, which was maybe why the Stealers hated them so much.

A hybrid would have a special heart, or so it was assumed. Subject Amalie had been incoherent by that point, saying anything to get out of the torture chamber. According to her, Stealers killed these hypothetical hybrids at birth with the same sort of disdain they killed regular human males. None had survived to maturity in dozens of decades.

The scientists, being the sort of people that bred child soldiers without a second thought, thought this hybrid was a fabulous idea. They did their best to create one, but all trials failed. Even so, they seemed to think they could use the results in the future. Any such child would be stronger than human and likely immune to the Stealer pheromones.

They also listed concerns about what would happen if a regular Stealer got a hold of a hybrids' heart. Disaster, presumably.

Another notice flashed, and I glared at it. "I'm trying to read!"

A second glare revealed the content of the message, and my glower dropped into confusion. _Project Heart is currently being edited. Would you like to view the changes?_

Well, duh. But… edited? At two in the morning? What information could possibly coming in at two in the morning? Unless Airhorn Dude was writing his complaints in the wrong file, I couldn’t imagine what they could possibly have to add to a seventeen-year-dead project.

I clicked through, and immediately wished that I hadn’t. There was a whole new page, shiny and new and sporting the wrong page number.

_Doctor Francis Reed, the runner of Project Heart, has been executed. It was discovered that during the period he was working on Projects Unattached and Heart, he was also overindulging in alcohol. As a result, he made a few astoundingly idiotic mistakes. _

_As a result of these mistakes, it is only now being realized that this project is a resounding success. Instead of failing in the test tube stage, we have a subject that is nearing full maturity with no observable deformities or mental instabilities. To our knowledge, Subject Naythan is the first Stealer/human hybrid to reach maturity in the modern age._

I reeled back from my computer, mouth gaping. My mind spun, clicking all the pieces together. My resistance to the famed Stealer pheromones. The way my heart had reacted when my head got slammed against the wall. The way I’d grown up.

Why did I _ever _think that going on my computer was a good idea? This was so not going to help me sleep.


	21. 14.5 Daily News

** DAILY NEWS **

** _ Search for Toronto Missing Girl Closed _ **

After almost two months of searching, the police are putting their search for missing teen Meadhbh Tuller (described as flaxen blond, 5” 8’, portrait to the right) on hold. There has been a dearth of evidence, and the police are at a loss. Meadhbh was presumed kidnapped, but no ransom demands had been issued.

The kidnapping seems to be an isolated incident, as no other blonde teenage girls have been kidnapped. Nevertheless, parents and teens are advised to be careful around strangers. The kidnapper may have moved on, or they may be waiting for another opportunity. Their motives, and indeed everything about them, remain mysterious.

Meadhbh’s sister, Mab Tuller, is insisting that her sister’s disappearance was not merely a kidnapping. According to her testimony and the testimony of her live-in aunt, Meadhbh was taken from the Tuller’s Toronto home by armed men. Indeed, evidence seems to support this. Their front gate was mangled by a vehicle conclusion, and there was evidence of gunfire inside the house. Unfortunately, their security system seems to have suffered a memory purge, and no record of the alleged event remains.

When inquired by the press, Mab did not comment on why she was not taken as well. Mab believes her sister "Has been captured and probably [...] experimented on," and that the police "Aren't doing [anything]."

Any leads on Meadhbh's whereabouts are to be reported to the missing persons hotline: 555-555-5678. There is a $10 000 reward for her safe return.


	22. 15. Naythan

I woke to soft knocking. Everything reengaged at once and I lurched upright with a gasp. Keys popped, and I groaned. My hand went to my cheek – home to a perfect impression of the middle of my keyboard. Great. I’d fallen asleep.

The knock came again, more insistent. I flapped my hand at the door, “Coming, jeez.” I plodded to the door, the carpet scratchy under my bare feet. I was midway through squinting my first expression of the day when I opened the door, expecting to be greeted by Airhorn Dude or someone similar.

Meadhbh smiled at me, uncuffed and unguarded. I screamed and slammed the door in her face. My heart hiccupped in my chest, laughing as hard as Meadhbh was. I could hear her having a grand old time through the door and I wanted to die.

“Naythan,” she called, still chuckling, “are you okay?”

I scrubbed my cheek, trying to rub away the dents. I was sure I looked very attractive: half asleep with a keyboard on my cheek. And squinting. Not my best moment. ”Fine.” I was not fine. I was going to die of embarrassment.

Meadhbh’s laughter petered away, and she knocked the door right by my ear with her super ninja skills. I jumped away. "Okay Boy? You okay?"

"Totally fine.” I lied, opening the door. I hoped I didn't look as stupid this time. Meadhbh grinned at me wide enough that the butterflies in my stomach started to stage a revolution. "No offence, but why aren't you in your cell?"

Meadhbh pulled up her pant leg and turned her ankle towards me. She had her eerie grace back, movements that looked practiced and concise. It was a relief to see her standing free again. "Got a tracker anklet thing. Was hyper earlier, so they let me out. As long as I don't do anything but wander around looking bored, I'm fine."

I smiled slightly, lips quirking up at the sides. I was drinking in the sight of her hale and healthy. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see her again, not like this. I’d underestimated how hardcore the scientists were. After what I’d read, I certainly wouldn’t be doing _that_ again. They would do anything to exterminate the Stealers – including killing their own people. "No killing people with a comb? Shame."

Meadhbh smiled too, looking down at the lapels of her leather jacket. If it was any other girl, I would’ve thought she was being shy but Meadhbh didn’t have a shy setting – what you saw was what you got. "Yeah."

There was a moment of awkward silence as we stared at each other, staring at everything except each other’s eyes. Meadhbh looked like she wanted to eat me alive; like a day spent alone was long enough away that she was starving for me. My cheeks burned.

Meadhbh’s eyes sparkled brighter, and then she darted forwards. I huffed and staggered backwards when she grabbed me, flinging her arms around my middle and holding tight with every ounce of her preternatural strength. Meadhbh buried her head in my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her, breathing her in. Her hair smelled like salt and industrial shampoo. I tightened my grip, making sure she was real and _here_ and I wasn’t being really creepy and dreaming about her.

"I don't know whether to say thank you or to kick you in the shin." she said into my shoulder. She wasn’t letting up the vice grip and my ribs were starting to creak. I didn’t mind.

I laughed as well as I could with maybe 30% of my usual lung space, soaking up the warmth emanating from her. She was a furnace when she was healthy – another thing that distinguished this living Meadhbh from the ghost that had almost died in her place. "I'm good with the thanking, personally."

Meadhbh dug her pointy chin into my shoulder and I yelped, tried to draw back. She just gripped me tighter like she was afraid if I stepped away I’d disappear. I felt the same way about her – it was surreal to have her here, happy and healthy. “Ow, Medby. Careful with that chin.” Her hair tickled my nose. I sneezed. “And the hair.”

Meadhbh let go, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. I had enough time to say, “Wait, what are you-“ before I got cut off with a wave of hair to the face. Meadhbh cackled, did another hair flip directly into my face. “Medby!”

I grabbed for her hair during the third flip but Meadhbh was already two steps ahead of me, ducking and driving her shoulder into my stomach. We went flying into my room and landed in a heap on the floor. Meadhbh hovered above me for a second before rolling off to kneel beside me. “Naythan,” she said, mocking and fond. “Were you saying something?”

I coughed until I had enough breath for words, my silly smile already speaking for me. I couldn’t believe she was here – real and _here_. I could remember all too much of her decline… and how she’d recovered.

I sat, not nearly as graceful as the girl at my side. She watched, hands tucked into her lap, strands of hair escaping her braid to curl her face. For a second, I could see the sick Meadhbh in her stillness. My heart cracked.

"I'm sorry." I told her. "I know you didn't want to hurt anyone but..." I shrugged, helpless. She watched, dispassionate and removed. “I didn't want you to die, okay? I didn’t hate him or want him dead or _anything, _I grew up with him, Meadhbh! It’s just…” and again I trailed off, searching for words. I didn’t know how to tell her that I’d do anything for her without actually _telling _her. I could barely say it to myself. “You were fading so fast, Medby, and I couldn’t watch that happen when I could save you."

Meadhbh ran her hands down her jacket. And again, like she was trying to wipe the blood off them. She had sky eyes, wide and empty. I could almost see the blood she was imagining on her fingers, the way she was measuring her breaths and her new heartbeat.

I waved my hand in front of her, trying to jar her out of her trance. She blinked. I waved again. "Earth to Medby? Come in, Medby!"

Her eyes focused again, long enough for her to roll them. I grinned encouragingly. I needed to get her out of her thoughts and keep her in the present with me. There was no point on dwelling on something that she _needed_ that was half my fault, anyway. "So, Medby. Now that you've got... Now that you've got more time, wanna teach me how to see things with my eyes closed?"

Her hands stilled on her jacket, like she'd finally realized she was doing it. Meadhbh stared at me, her eyes still sky-wide. "What?"

I closed my eyes and mimed karate chopping at midair. Like Meadhbh, only stupid. "You know, that thing you do? Where you don't even have to have your eyes open to turn me down."

Meadhbh snorted. I could tell she was rolling her eyes, even without opening mine. After exactly one month – thirty-one days of awesomeness – of knowing her, I knew what she was going to do before she did it. It was gratifying, knowing someone that well. I’d never had that before, not with anyone. It was a long time coming, and a time well worth waiting. "Really, Okay Boy?"

I cracked open an eye and made a faux-serious expression. Meadhbh grinned out at me, legs crossed and leaning towards me like I had a sort of geeky gravity. "Teach me the ways of the Force."

Meadhbh’s eyes sharpened, landed in the present. Again, she rolled them. “Fine, but only if you stop making that idiotic expression. You look constipated and there’s an outline of a keyboard on your face.”

My hand flew up to cover it, and Meadhbh actually _winked_ at me. My heart skipped a beat as I tried to scrub it away again watching her cackle_._ I pretended to scowl, like my heart wasn’t rising in my throat. _"_Fine, Medby."

Meadhbh offered a hand; palm up, fingers curved. I took it, weaving my fingers through hers. Her hand was searingly warm against my fingers – amazing compared to her icicle fingers of yesterday. I could feel her warmth all the way down to my bones, a physical manifestation of my hope. Meadhbh was warm, and she was real, and she was smiling and laughing at me again.

I was all ready to start my Jedi training, but then I caught sight of a circle of glass, and I let go. Meadhbh tilted her head. “…now? Or do you have something else to do?” Her voice quavered a bit at the end, like she was afraid I’d abandon her. “We can always-“

“No, no.” I told her, grabbing her hand back for a second. She flinched a little at first, then squeezed my hand back. Meadhbh still looked heartbreakingly unsure. “I just have to take care of something first. Gimme half an hour and I’ll meet you in the caf.”

Her smile came back, small and hopeful. “Caf?”

"Cafeteria." I needed to smash those cameras before anything else happened. They already had footage of us holding hands and laughing with each other. They didn’t need footage of anything else. I made a shooing motion. "You want to watch me shower?"

It took a second for that to click, but Meadhbh’s face flooded with colour and she was on her feet and out the door. _Ha. Payback_.

I chuckled to myself as I grabbed a pen and my stool. Consulting my document, I made my rounds of the room and smashed in the lenses of every camera.

I couldn't believe their _nerve_. I wasn't a prisoner here- well, maybe I was. The revelation about what I really was had been a bit of a life-changer. I was just another subject, albeit one that got a nicer cell and some useless privileges. I was also the stupidest prisoner – I hadn’t even realized I was a prisoner. That in itself was impressive. I hadn’t been allowed out of the compound in years, and had never been allowed out alone.

I frowned, added _LEAVE THE COMPOUND_ to my mental list. It was pretty important, right behind figuring out what I was supposed to wear to my Jedi lessons with Meadhbh in the cafeteria. I had a startling lack of shapeless brown robes in my closet. I’d have to improvise.


	23. 16. Naythan

I lashed out, just managing to clip the edge of Meadhbh's hand. She tapped my forehead, and I opened my eyes, grinning. My hand was still aching from the approximately fifteen times I’d accidentally punched a chair, but I couldn’t feel it through the pride. "I totally got you that time!"

Meadhbh leaned down to stare me in the eye, and one of her elegant eyebrows lifted. Never before had I seen someone so exasperatingly unimpressed. She was inhumanly good at everything she did, and that reached all the way to expressions. Meadhbh would have been an actress in another life. "Oh, yeah. You _totally _aced that… after more than an hour of practice. As I _clapped loudly_.”

Meadhbh straightened, went to walk back to her spot a couple feet away. I tried to trip her, which was a mistake. I had the equilibrium of a drunken giraffe, and she had to grab my shoulders and haul me back upright. I struggled back into lotus position as Meadhbh went to lean on the table again. “Do I really have to meditate?”

Meadhbh’s sigh reverberated off the cafeteria walls. I’d been right to choose working here – there were pretty good acoustics, and with the scientists still having their Donuts-Without-Solutions meetings, it was empty. The only other things in the room were stacks upon stacks of chairs, leaning over the tables like metallic weeping willows. The tables themselves were solid things, not the usual foldable tables. They had been stacked, though, two or three high to clear a bare spot in the middle of the room. “Yes, Okay Boy, you have to meditate. That’s how you focus yourself. It’s not magic.”

I made such a face at that that Meadhbh snorted and walked back over. She lowered herself down to her own (better) lotus position in front of me, twisting her legs into a pretzel. I gaped. Did she not have bones? Joints? Were Stealers land jellyfish or something? "You're pretty flexible."

Meadhbh pressed her hands flat to her stomach, and managed to keep herself upright while doing it. Somehow, she managed to make it look effortless, like I was the one that was the outlier in this situation. It was completely unfair. "Meditate. Because you need to _focus, _Okay Boy. You're all over the place."

"Hmmph." I _had_ just figured out I wasn’t your garden-variety doorstep orphan. That tended to be a shock. I might have been part Stealer, but that didn’t mean I’d inherited any of the worthwhile things. From watching Meadhbh, I’d have guessed that Stealers were supernaturally graceful. Me? Not so much.

I tried to imitate her position, but ended up just bracing my hands in the ground to keep my back straight, tendons creaking in my legs. Eyes still closed, Meadhbh sniggered. I scowled over at her, still seated with her hands folded over her stomach. Other than faint breathing, she could have been a statue. Aphrodite, maybe. "Oh, be quiet."

Meadhbh chortled, yet managed to stay upright and superior. Glaring, I managed to lift one hand off the ground and press it to my stomach, but the extra motion sent me over the edge and I tipped again. Meadhbh wasn’t here to catch me this time and my palm bit hard into the gritty concrete. I yelped, setting off another wave of laughter. Meadhbh was laughing full out, still sitting like she had a poker glued to her spine. That was it. Meadhbh was a magical, mystical, unfathomable creature. Unfortunately for me, her greatest power was being capable of making me look like an incompetent moron twenty-four hours a day. "Be _quiet, _Medby! I'm trying, okay?"

"Do or do not; there is no try." Meadhbh said, because she was annoying like that. I couldn't choke my laughter back fast enough. Her grin blossomed, enormously pleased with itself. "Naythan. Close your eyes and focus. I'm going to snap my fingers. Point to it."

Obediently, I closed my eyes and tried to summon my inner ninja. Meadhbh snapped her fingers off to what I was maybe seventy percent sure was the left. I pointed. It was spooky, trying to perceive the world without the sense I usually depended on. Hearing was incredible important, often underrated, but… on its own? Maybe not the most useful.

Meadhbh hummed an affirmative. For once, she sounded pleased. I figured that for once I’d been accurate – it felt good to not fail. The feeling didn’t last long. "Good. How far?"

I scowled, hoping she’d opened her eyes, though I doubted it. It was a shame to waste such an impressive show of displeasure. "How far? How am I supposed to know?"

"Guess." Meadhbh’s voice was dry. “Surely you have the brainpower in there, somewhere.”

“Very funny.” I tried to replay the sound in my mind; how far, how loud. I failed. Guessing it was, then. "More than a centimetre, but less than a kilometre away."

Funnily enough, I could _hear_ Meadhbh rolling her eyes. I narrowed my focus to her, the slight sounds of her breathing, the sound of her silken hair flipping over her shoulder, and… a whistle, a quick rush of air.

Faster than I could think, I whipped my hand up. Her hand hit mine, and my fancy hybrid heart nearly gave out on me. I’d done it – I’d succeeded. That wasn’t what was making my heart trip over itself, though. Meadhbh wasn’t moving, her hand still wrapped around mine. Then, she wove her fingers through mine and my heart rate doubled. I let her lead me to my feet, opening my eyes to find them level with hers; emerald, steady, and shining.

I froze, but still we drifted closer. I could hardly blink, hardly breathe. Meadhbh was staring almost past me, hungry, like she wanted to eat me alive. My heart stopped as Meadhbh closed the gap between us and pressed her perfect lips to mine. The air around us electrified, heady and exhilarating. The kiss was barely that, chaste and light, but my traitor heart didn’t seem to know or care. It swooped so fast I felt it in my toes and the hand I had clasped in Meadhbh’s.

I didn’t know what I expected today to include, but a kiss wasn't on the list. I might have expected to stare at her for too long, expected to smile and laugh and maybe fall in useless love. But maybe, just maybe, Meadhbh liked me too.

I was so lost that for a second I hardly noticed bells clanging and the red light flashing through the room. The fire alarm wailed like it had lost a piece of itself, and Meadhbh stepped back from me, dropping my hand and flying out through the cafeteria door like a startled animal. My hand still hovered in the air, reaching for her. I stood there for a second, frozen, staring at the open door to the hallway. I lowered my hand back to my side, still staring in awe.

Then I smiled. Stupidly.


	24. 16.5 Personal Log

** Personal Log of D.C. Handler **

Was reprimanded today – and complimented. It’s been like that a lot lately, it’s weird. Comes with the promotion, I guess. Did I mention I got promoted? Oh yeah, this man right here got promoted to Stealer Behavioural Observer! After six years as a lab flunky, this Handler handles stupid chemicals no more! Caleb Simeon, you know, the head of the SRC, saw my diligent work and decided to promote me to something more worthy of my talents. I _know_ that I didn’t exactly pass every single class in uni, but this is ridiculous! You don’t _need_ to pass everything to graduate and be smart. I’m living proof of that.

Well… my new job isn’t exactly all that different or all that interesting. I sit in the observation room and watch the newly captured Stealer all day. This one even has a name – a weird one that nobody but that silly kid Naythan can spell – but yeah, she actually has a name! Isn't that wild? Next thing I know, they’ll be considered human and I’ll be out of a job! Wouldn’t that be funny?

Wait. No it wouldn’t. This is a bargain basement job, anyway. Whatever. This job is just a step up the ladder. A really, really long step up the ladder. I’ll make it to the top eventually, if I keep trying. Just a couple more years and I’ll be a Stealer Geneticist, I can just see it… I’ll have enough money to buy myself a roller coaster!

So, anyway, today was weird. Subjects Naythan and A were starting to make out in the cafeteria – I'm not a peeping Tom, I swear, I was on duty observing them! That’s what Behavioural Observer means! – and I’d already gotten a dressing down for allowing Naythan all those contact privileges in the first place. I had to do _something_.

So I pulled the fire alarm. Genius move, you know? Nothing like a good ol’ startle and cold shower to get you out of the mood!

The downside to my – highly effective, I might add – move, was that a lot of personnel ended up with ruined experiments and sodden clothes since the sprinklers turned on facility-wide. Hey, I achieved my goal! The subjects stopped smooching, and in my book, that’s a win. They have no reason to ahem, _fire_ me like Doctor Franny Reed. He had a PhD, didn’t he? More like a PhDead now, if you ask me.

Wait. That didn’t make any sense. Is there a way to delete a section of a log? [Muffled beeping]. Dammit! [More beeping]. Fine. Fine. Okay, so the other downside to my solution is that I gotta be on stalker duty for the next _month._ I mean, I like my job? But following them around in person? No way, no day. That’s crossing the line. Plus, won’t they notice me? That Stealer is _scary_.

I’m just lucky the cafeteria didn’t have sprinklers, or the tracker anklet might’ve shorted out. If that happened, well… I’d be the next one to be PhDead.

Why aren't there sprinklers in the cafeteria, anyway? Seems dumb. I should look it up. I don't wanna to catch on fire in there and _stay_ on fire.

Speaking of the cafeteria, the only thing it was offering for dinner was that stupid lasagna. _Again_. I hate that stupid lasagna. It tastes like cardboard. _Wet_ cardboard. Man, I wish I could have a different job. One with better food, better promotion opportunities, and hopefully no spying on horny teenagers.


	25. 17. Naythan

It turned out that if Meadhbh didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be found. I'd looked in her cell, my cell, and even looped back to the caf. There was neither hide nor tail of her _anywhere_. Stealer power number five hundred and four – disappearing into thin air. I needed to start writing them down.

I could have totally just use the anklet to track her down, but that would’ve been cheating. I wanted to find her on my own, anyway. Call me a hopeless romantic, or just plain hopeless. Both worked.

After another useless search, I resigned myself to sitting in my cell and trying not to daydream while I wrote a materials request letter for sprinklers in the cafeteria. The fire alarm, activated for reasons unknown, had drenched everywhere _but_ the caf. Even my cell was drenched, carpet squelching disgustingly under my feet at every squeamish step. When I rolled my chair around, it sounded like I was running over a dead kraken.

I just _loved_ my cell. It was so... homey.

Twelve pages of paperwork later, I signed with a flourish and flung my pen down on the desk with a clatter. It rolled off the end and landed in the sodden carpet with a sickening _slurk_. Because of course.

"Well," I told myself. Sighed. I hated paperwork, and I hated wet carpets. At this point, it was hard to tell which one I hated more. "At least if I catch fire in the caf now, I won't be on fire for long."

A voice behind me spoke, authoritarian and crisp. "Why would you be catching on fire in the cafeteria?"

I fell off my chair in surprise, the wheels carrying it, and most of my dignity, into a galaxy far, far away. I stared up at my unexpected visitor from my undignified sprawl on the floor.

Doctor Simeon stood in my door, staring down at me with a crease the size of my clumsiness furrowing down the centre of his forehead. Doctor Simeon was the head honcho of all, really. He was about as tall as I was, maybe a hair taller, with cropped dark hair and olive skin. He wore a sodden suit tailored so exactingly that he looked like an Armani mannequin. It would’ve been cheaper – and snazzier – for him to sew twenty-dollar bills into a suit.

Doctor Simeon cleared his throat, and gestured to the sofa. His suit, along with the rest of his overly posh self, was at sharp odds with the abused paisley sheet covering the sofa. "May I sit?"

He was going to get a very wet butt – of _course_ I said yes. I had to find fun here somewhere. Teenage boys shouldn't be left around scientists too long. All work and no play made Naythan a dull boy.

Doctor Simeon sat. The sofa sunk under him, letting out a noise not unlike one made by a dying whale. I managed to keep a straight face, but I couldn't help wishing I had left a camera intact so I could record the moment for posterity.

There was a moment of silence to commemorate the passing of that particular suit. My skin crawled, so I stood and leant on my desk to get a better angle for the show. The head of the SRC struggled for words, his behind still firmly parked in the sodden sofa. It continued sinking beneath him, like it was ashamed.

"Now, Naythan," Doctor Simeon said eventually, ignoring the fact I had allowed him I sit on the sofa of doom. It was chivalrous thing – and disappointing thing – for him to do. "We have something very important to discuss."

I affected an interested look. It was difficult, since I didn’t know the man. This was a truly terrible time for him to pop by. Unless he was here to shower me with promotions and money for a new sofa, I wasn’t interested. "We do?"

He stared at me, unblinking. I felt like I was a pet project that had grown an interesting type of fungus or something. Maybe a baking soda volcano that took out a chandelier. "Yes."

I waited. Doctor Simeon didn't say anything. Or blink – it was getting creepy, to be honest. I waved a hand at him as pseudo-respectful as I could manage. "We have something to discuss? That's very important?"

Doctor Simeon jolted from his scrutiny like he’d just realized I was talking – or was capable of intelligent speech. It was almost insulting how puzzled and on edge he was. "Yes. Something very important."

I flattened my eyebrows at him, trying to do that Thing that Meadhbh did so effortlessly; her face was an open book, an endless scroll of poetry. I was unimpressed, and doing my best to show it. Doctor Simeon couldn’t meet my eyes, weaving his fingers together and then apart. Together and apart.

I shifted. Sighed loudly. I had places to search, beautiful girls to find, work to procrastinate. "Okay, Mr. Head Honcho. Get to the point, or we'll be here all day. I need to go find Meadhbh."

“You need to do no such thing,” he told me, his hands dropping dead at his sides. He leaned towards me, his presence unfolding to fill the room. “She is irrelevant.”

Oh, he wanted to fight me? Okay, then. I crossed my arms tight over my chest, leaned farther back against the desk to feign nonchalance. The desk complained, and I hoped that it wouldn’t die on me before I could insult Doctor Simeon from my unimpressed perch. “How so?” I considered my words for a second, then threw caution to the wind. “She’s my assignment. The way _I _look at things, you’re the irrelevant one here.”

I could feel the _snap_ even before he lurched to his feet, his face flooding with ugly colour. A flipped switch, straight to furious. The dude needed therapy. Or possibly a restraining order. "Don't be disrespectful to your _father_!"

That took a second to sink in. Mental gears spun. “Wait, what?”

Dr. Simeon winced and sunk back into the sofa of doom, his anger fading as quickly as it had roared to life. If you were to look in the dictionary, his face would be under the caption _Oops._ "There might've been a better way to say that."

Yeah, there _might've_. My mind wound back to all the other times I'd seen him.

Which was… All of once. _Once._ I was eleven, and had broken my arm by being an epic fail and tripping on the carpet pretending I was Superman. I'd seen him talking to the doctors, and he came over and said hi before leaving. Well, said _Hi_ wasn’t quite right. He’d given me that failed experiment glare and said something like, “So I hear you’re Naythan”. After I nodded, he told me that was a terrible name and wandered away.

Until not too long ago, I'd believed I was a charity case. Now I’d learned that I’d been grown in a test tube. Still, to learn that Doctor Freaking Simeon was my father? That was almost more of a shock than the whole hybrid thing.

Even so, I couldn't say I was a hundred percent surprised. These things seemed to be happening a lot, lately. The Stealer was a teenager. She wasn't a monster. I was in charge of her well being, up to the point of taking her on movie dates and kissing in a darkened cafeteria. Things had been making a change for the better. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last.

I guess I looked like Doctor Simeon – we had the same nose and glossy hair that flipped up at the end if we let it get too long. It would have bothered me some other day. At the moment, I may or may not have been more worried about finding Meadhbh than my wacko parentage.

I hoisted a saccharine smile into place, and said, super genuinely, "Wow. That's amazing. Now if you don't mind, I need to go find Meadhbh."

"Subject A," Doctor Simeon said, sharply. Any lingering façade of warm fatherhood dropped away, replaced by disgust and distrust. Back to normal, then. I knew how to deal with bullies and guys who thought they were on top of the world. "It’s _Subject A_. And you do _not_ need to find it."

The way he called my Medby _it _didn’t fly over my head. I saw red, my fists clenching and blood humming in my ears. "Subject A?" My own restraint snapped like a dry twig. I shoved myself off the desk, stalked towards dear old dad. "Subject _A? _How would _you _like it if I called _you _Subject A?"

He scowled, and I almost flinched back at the stark resemblance to… myself. Downside to having him as my father – I’d never be able to scowl again without thinking of him. Way to poison my life, Dad. "You would not call me Subject A because I am a _person, _unlike that girl shaped _thing _that you are spending far too much time with. I want you to stop spending time with it, for your own good. _It_ isn't a person worthy of you."

I laughed, hard, bitter. Oh, for the… This father shaped _thing_ in front of me was no more my father than Meadhbh was the unfathomable and deadly girl the scientists thought she was. “That's rich. You think a girl who bargains for her sister's life isn't a person?” I let out another incredulous laugh. I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of me. “You think a girl who cries and begs for forgiveness for something she couldn't help doing isn't a person? You think Meadhbh isn't a _person_?" I slammed my hand down on the back of the sofa, sending drops flying. "Meadhbh's more of a person than you are, Daddy-o. Who experiments on their own kid?"

Doctor Simeon blanched, like I’d breached some sort of barrier in his mind –like he hadn’t thought of it in those blatant truths before. I felt vindictive, victorious. "Do _not _talk to me like that! You’re just a child-"

"Oh, so you aren't denying it? That's nice to know." Anger seethed in my chest, and the only reason I wasn't glowering was my soul-deep aversion to being anything like the dripping idiot on the sofa. “Real nice of you to admit it. I didn’t think you had any honesty left in you.”

There was a moment of silence. I could hear each individual droplet of water falling to the floor with dull **plunks, **like applause for all the stupid in the room. Faint scratching sounds drifted out into my room, like someone sitting on reams of paper, or maybe quiet laughter. I mentally facepalmed. _Really_? Of all the-

Colour flooded back into Doctor Simeon’s cheeks, a dusky, furious red. I’d hit a nerve – or five, or fifty. "I didn't-"

"-Say that, I know, but it's all in those reports? Maybe you shouldn't have taught me how to hack so well."

Doctor Simeon was completely speechless. His mouth dropped open just wide enough to show off his perfect pearly whites. His perfect layer of control was in tatters. I was completely done with him. I was done with the lies, with the manipulation and last minute affection for the sake of nothing more than nudging me back into line. And I was _so _done with his judgement of my life. How ironic that I, a less-than-human hybrid of a monster, had stronger morals than this _pinnacle_ of scientific humanity.

Not breaking eye contact, I strode for the door and opened it with a flourish. Holding it open with my foot, I mock saluted my father with attitude Meadhbh would have respected. "Good day, sir."

His jaw snapped tight, muscles pulsing. "I am the owner of this compound! You're my son! You have no right-"

I groaned and hit my head on the door. This was it. I officially preferred not having a father. At least an imaginary father could only tear you down as well as you could tear yourself down. A real one was a whole new endeavour. "Okay. I officially disown you as a father. And I request as your employee of sixteen years to get back to my job. Happy?"

He stood, sofa squelching and moaning, and stalked out of the room as if he was the one dismissing himself. I knew better. I slammed the door after him, not bothering to stifle my grin. I’d… won. I’d actually won, however useless the victory was. I addressed the door, even though I knew my father couldn’t hear me. "Good _riddance_."


	26. 18. Naythan

I spent the next hour humming Darth Vader's theme song to myself _(Naythan, I am your father)_ as I dumped all the wet stuff in the hallway. Meadhbh's little Star Wars obsession was beginning to rub off on me. I was planning to get a disc set of the movies, soon as I could. I didn’t care how much Meadhbh complained about different edits and how the VCR boxed set from the early nineties was the best version. They were still the same movies, dammit. I could buy what I wanted, _when_ I wanted. What I wanted was to watch Star Wars with Meadhbh. And soon.

_Maybe it’s because she doesn't have long._

_Shut up, brain._

** _You_ ** _ shut up, hormones._

Finally, I was finished, with no sofa, or armchair or other pieces of furniture left in my apartment. The bed was an essential, and the only thing I bothered replacing, mattress, covers, and all. The electronics had been protected, at least. I’d realized that there were sprinklers in here when the last Stealer set off the fire alarm as she tried to escape. I’d had to replace everything – and believe me, trying to convince scientists that a TV was essential to life wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

I changed into dry clothes before sauntering over to my closet and knocking on the door. The room dripped quietly around me, towels spread around to soak up the water. The last thing I wanted was a mouldy floor. I could deal with mouldy clothes – they were easy enough to replace or foist off on the nearest, stupidest scientist – but the carpet was my_ floor_. I had to step on it. "You okay in there, Medby?"

The door opened and Meadhbh stared at me from the darkness of the tiny space. She was dwarfed by the stacks of files and machines, sixteen years worth of my life written in junk. A tiny red light blinked behind her, an indicator light from a shoddy homemade circuit board. It was nearly covered by discarded stuffed toys and flyaway sheets of paper.

"I'm fine." Meadhbh told me, voice sharp, like it was a length of barbed wire wrapped around her. It was night and day – the opposite of the way she was tucked into a tiny ball. As I stood there, she curled herself tighter into the corner, her anklet flickering along with my ancient electronics.

"I'm sure you are." I lowered myself to sit across from Meadhbh, parked my butt outside the closet of abandoned electronics. We didn’t touch, inches apart, eons away. I could feel her presence like a storm, electrifying me. "You know, if you didn't want to talk to me, you don't have to block your tracker signal. I wasn't going to use it."

Meadhbh ducked her head to rest on her knees, looking impossibly tiny. This was the broken Meadhbh again, the one I hated. I hated how she hated herself for something that wasn’t her fault, the way she couldn’t find the courage to forgive herself. "Look, _Okay Boy_, I don't like being captive. If being in this dinky little closet means the idiots in lab coats can't find me, I'll sit in here."

Silence filled the room like a shadow, draping itself over everyone and everything and generally making itself awkward and unwanted. I cleared my throat, winced at what sounded like I was trying to cough up a hairball. "Uh... Anyway. Um."

Meadhbh laughed silently, her shoulders bobbing. Meadhbh lifted her head, still settled deep inside herself, but not as shattered. I tugged on my ear, stomach filling to the top with butterflies. "Okay. Um. How much of that did you hear?"

"Enough."

I sighed. "Right. So..."

Again, Meadhbh made the first move, stretching her hands across the gap and wrapping them around mine. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Even Mab... Even _Maura _never really got me. And mother was off to Timbuktu and back and I've been...” Meadhbh looked down again, her voice stilted, like this was a truth she was discovering even as she spoke. Her words were almost _too _even, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have almost thought they’d been practiced. “Look, I don't know if this can ever end well. I've got a timer in my chest, ticking down to murder. And I _can't _go on killing every month, month and a half, to keep myself going.

"What have I given the world? Really, Okay Boy. What have I done that's worth so many other lives?"

I squeezed her hands, tried to clear her awful words from my mind. This was killing her – and not just with the technicalities, the way her heart was fading. _This_ was killing her, thinking she was turning into something irredeemable. "Medby, you aren't a monster."

She laughed again, joyless. “The fact that you think you have to _tell_ me that just kills me.” Meadhbh stared at me, her tear-misted emerald eyes unwavering, and it almost felt like she was waiting for me to give her an answer. Like _I _was the one who could pull her back, save her from herself. I couldn’t find anything – nothing that could make the difference she needed.

So sat on either sides of the door, hands bridging the gap. Time slowed to a stop, dust mites dancing in the shaft of light reaching into the closet. Meadhbh closed her eyes and I followed suit, my other senses jumping into sharper relief. The near-silent whir of my tracking-interference device was as loud as the paisley sheet I’d had over my sofa. Meadhbh’s breathing, too, was audible – soft, slow breaths. I could smell her hair, salt and shampoo. Her strong hands gripped mine like they were her tethers to reality.

We stayed that way, anchoring each other. I couldn’t count the times I nearly opened my eyes, wanting so badly to see her. I couldn’t. That would have fractured the moment, and nothing was worth that. It was another of the moments I wanted to save, download to my mind and replay for the rest of my life. It was peaceful, perfect. It was-

The fire alarm went off again.

I groaned, feeling the peace and companionship shatter and fall away like it had never been there. I screwed my eyes tighter shut, like that would make the alarm shut up. It didn’t. My ears, brain, and other useless things in my skull, ached. "Oh, come _on."_

Meadhbh hauled me to my feet, let go of my hands to shield her ears from the piercing wail. My eyes snapped open, blinking up to the sprinklers spinning into life on the ceiling. _Oh_. Her hearing – I’d never thought of that. However painful the klaxon was for me, it had to be a hundred times worse for her. It was the first downside I’d seen to the Stealer’s powers – they could overwhelm you. I wondered if Meadhbh had ever accidentally catapulted herself into the ceiling when she tried to stand up.

We tripped over each other, me trying to grab for something past her in the closet, Meadhbh trying to flee for the hall. I grabbed her hand again, pulled her with me towards my still-dry bed. The tarp flapped after us like a demented bat, nearly catching in the door. The sprinklers hissed, the first drops of water shaking down. Flapping the tarp out to its full extent, I blinked at Meadhbh. Her face was still screwed up, pained from the assault of the alarm, but she was looking at me. "Medby! Hold up the other end."

She grabbed it and lifted, water pounding down and rolling off onto the floor. I ducked under the tarp, flopping onto my bed. I beckoned, and Meadhbh’s mouth made a perfect O of understanding. She dove, spreading the crackling material over us as the deluge started in earnest. I turned my head towards her so I wouldn't suffocate myself on the tarp, and I think she did the same. Our hands found each other again, and Meadhbh wove our fingers into something solid. My stomach swooped, like all the butterflies had swooned in unison.

It took approximately two more seconds for the reality of the situation to sink in, and I couldn't keep back my belly laugh. "There is _no way_ this is a coincidence."

An answering giggle sounded. Meadhbh’s hand tightened on mine, and unless I was greatly mistaken, her laugh brought her closer. She was close, now, maybe two inches away. "They're trying to keep us apart. Earlier in the caf, and then now."

I tightened my hand in hers, cheer dripping away like the droplets over the tarp. The butterflies in my stomach started dying for real, dropping away one by one. Suddenly serious: "I won't let them. I won't let them keep us apart."

Meadhbh’s hand shook, her grip verging on painful as she tried to keep it steady. "Okay Boy. Okay. You do that. I'd like that."

I propped up the tarp with my other hand, trying to let some fresh air into the suddenly stifling space between us. A few droplets found their way in, but I ignored them. Light shone in too, just enough for me to make out a slight smile on Meadhbh’s face. Then I blinked, and it was gone, her bottom lip trembling and tear tracks streaking down her cheeks.

“Hey,” I said, and summoned up the courage to inch closer, our arms pressing together. I jostled her shoulder, made sure she could see my smile. “It’ll be okay. This is just…”

“A disaster,” Meadhbh said, and shook her head. Rain dislodged itself from creases in the tarp and tumbled to the floor. At this rate, my room was going to turn into a swimming pool. “A very manufactured disaster, actually. Did they think we were going to believe that there’s a fire?”

“Twice in a row? When we’re, uh, talking?” I finished, shrugged. It was easy to talk under a tarp, when I didn’t have to see her. I didn’t have to hear myself fail, either. I could hardly hear anything over the cascading sprinklers. “Yeah, I’m suspected one of the lower scientists for this one. The smart thing to do would be to like, remove me from this assignment. Not that,” I added hurriedly, “That I want to be removed. I don’t.”

Through the blessing of some deity, the fire alarm stopped – replaced by the awesome sound of my abused eardrums whining about their tragic backstories. We sat up in unison, folded the tarp away from our faces. Water sheeted to the floor as we stared at each other, hands still clasped beneath the tarp.

“Um,” Meadhbh said, summing up my feelings perfectly. I stared at my brand new desk chair, sagging sadly into the ruined carpet. My entire room was sodden – again. Oh well. At least my bed was dry. Meadhbh’s eyes were sparkling with mirth, now, instead of tears. Something like gravity pulled us closer, closer…

Then the biohazard alarm went off.

I fell back on my bed, peals of laughter ringing off the dripping walls. The biohazard alarm kept squealing, somehow even more annoying and ear-piercing than the fire alarm. My ears weren’t ringing anymore, though, so that was a plus. I wove my fingers more securely with hers. "They're pulling out all the stops, aren't they?" I mouthed at the girl next to me – there was no use trying to shout over the alarm. The piercing sound continued, wailing like a stubborn toddler.

Meadhbh just used her other hand to put a pillow over her head. I couldn’t hear her laughter over the biohazard alarm, but the bed shook with it. Maybe that – one perfect moment, laughter, love – maybe that was worth the busted eardrums.

It was worth it for me.


	27. 18.5 Subject Interactions

** The Increasing Problem Of Subjects A And Naythan **

As with the pattern of abject disaster, the subjects seem to be forming a deep bond with each other. They’re not just connected by lust and teenage – and Stealer – hormones anymore, oh no. They’re actually talking about their _feelings_. Although there have been warning signs about this relationship in the past, we laughed them off. Surely it would stall when Subject Naythan realized how stupid he was. It was supposed to be a matter of time.

(SEE FILE: WEEK OF DISASTER)

Repeated attempts have been made to curb their more momentous moments, but they were unsuccessful. If anything, our attempts to pull them apart have had the opposite effect – they’re growing closer by the day. The incident in the cafeteria was the only one we were able to properly cut short – an enterprising D.C. Handler pulled the fire alarm on them. However, this strategy proved ineffective in the later incident in Subject Naythan’s quarters.

**NOTE: Although somehow Subject Naythan managed to obtain access to his files – including information on the placement of cameras – there was still a solitary recording device left that had not been noted in the file. This has been allowing us to monitor them via audio, at least. I have put in a requisition for a surveillance refit in his quarters, and it’ll be filled within the week. **

Since this was the second time we’d used the same strategy (fire alarm), the subjects cottoned on. They bonded over the idiocy of their situation, and rightly so. It was a miracle that one of D.C. Handler’s strategies worked once. He has such a reputation for [messing up] projects that I’m appalled we took his advice in a project as serious as this one.

As a last resort, the biohazard alarm was pulled, but this inspired only laughter. We were concerned, at first, at their blatant disregard of what could have been an extremely dangerous situation. We soon concluded that the issue was close proximity to the other alarms and inference to its purpose that aspired the apathy, not intolerable stupidity. On this front, we can be assured of their – albeit limited – intelligence.

On the issue of their unprecedented bond, however, we have no such easy explanations. Subject Naythan is _supposed_ to be immune to Stealer pheromones and the like, yet he still seemed under the influence. Some have suggested that this Stealer is an evolved version of the previous ones we’ve captured. She could have stronger pheromones, which could explain Subject Naythan’s reaction to her.

If the evolution theorem is determined to be true, we will need to take drastic measures. We may have to terminate Subject A, however helpful she has been towards our research. We simply _cannot_ allow an evolved Stealer near all the fragile work on the premises.

Of course, this is all speculation. Until we determine what’s happening in truth, we will proceed as usual. We will continue to screen air quality to see if the concentration or makeup of her pheromones changes. We can figure this out, people! I need 110% effort on this project.

_-Doctor Caleb Simeon, Head of the Stealer Research Compound_


	28. 19. Naythan

**PART IV**

**HOME**

"Home is where the heart is."

_-Pliny the Elder_

"Hey, Medby!" I called.

Meadhbh’s hair, or what I could see of it over the top of my new navy sofa, fluttered when she sighed. She yanked herself up out of the sofa a bit more, regaining ground she’d lost a couple minutes ago. The sofa was trying to eat her for lunch. “Yes, Okay Boy?”

"I found you another song?"

Meadhbh pulled herself out of the Sofa of Doom, Mark II, and pulled the earbud out of her other ear. Wow, I deserved two ears worth of attention. I felt special. "Alright. What's it called?"

Meadhbh had been deprived of music for exactly thirty-two days – not that she was counting or anything. I'd taken it on myself to get her an iPod. One that didn't connect to WiFi, of course. I’d thought that was ridiculous until I’d caught her trying to email her sister – fine, there were reasons for rules. Meadhbh hadn’t looked guilty, either. She’d just told me, “I was obligated to try. No hard feelings,” and went back to listening to music.

Meadhbh liked rock, and she didn’t seem to care what the band members looked like. I couldn't help being relieved at that last part. Like an idiot.

I checked the song name, relayed it. "MayDay."

She tossed me her iPod, and I scrambled to catch it, but ended up tipping out of my new new wheeled chair and crashing to the floor. My elbows smarted, along with my pride. Meadhbh stuck her tongue out at me before turning her attention back to the fifth run-through of The Avengers. I couldn't tell if she actually liked the movie that much or if she pretended to like it because I did. It _was_ an awesome movie.

It was also pretty much my _only_ movie, at least until my vintage Star Wars set came in, but that was a minor detail.

I picked myself up from the floor just as Thor did, but unlike Thor, I didn't do anything so interesting as whaling after the hulk. Instead, I loaded the song onto Meadhbh's iPod and sent it sailing back over the sofa. She caught it easily, not even looking up from her rapt contemplation of the movie. Meadhbh would have made a great Avenger. The Thief? The Sneak? Something to do with stealing, probably. It was a pretty cool superpower.

I’d completely missed the bus on the whole “Stealer Skills” thing. I didn’t have any superpowers, not unless you counted coding skills. I didn’t count them – I mean, I supposed they could count under superior intelligence, but you didn’t get onto the Avengers unless you could do something explosive with your tech genius. Plus, being smart was approximately a thousand times less cool than the ability to be a ninja.

Meadhbh's earbuds went back in, and I settled my head on my hand as I watched her. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she seemed to relax a little, soaking up the music like a sponge. How she was doing that with music that would make my ears bleed, I didn't know, but it lit a cozy glow in my chest to know that she was content.

I fiddled with the mouse, green light pulsing as my fingerprint was scanned again and again. Meadhbh had already tried to email her sister, but she didn't have my finger on the mouse, so it shut down faster than you could say “Maybe technology skills didn’t suck after all”. Fingerprint sensor and all. Little project of mine, a couple years back. I'd gotten really, _really_ bored.

Her brilliant green eyes snapped back open, and she regarded the screen of her iPod Nano. A smile started growing, and she had to stifle a laugh, choking it to death in the palm of her hand. "Really, Naythan?"

I looked away, cheeks burning. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I did _not_ know what she was talking about. "What?"

"It's by MayNay."

I didn't meet her eyes, repeated my mantra again. "What's special about them?"

"Okay, Okay Boy. You wanna play dumb?" She enunciated her next words carefully. "May. Nay.” An eyebrow raise. My cheeks flamed further, and I tried to bury my nose in my computer. “_May_ve. _Nay_than.” Meadhbh said my name one last time, just to see if my face could get any redder. Unfortunately, it could. “Naythan Simeon.”

"I actually thought it was Smith until last week," I told her. She hadn't stopped teasing me since she found out who my father was, three days ago – or stopped surreptitiously humming the Darth Vader Song at inopportune moments. "Not _Simeon_."

She shrugged, shaking her head slightly, smiling, as she rested her eyes on me. They sparkled with amusement and a gentle emotion, maybe affection. I didn't think it could be anything stronger. I didn't want to die of hopelessness, or whatever mysterious fatal illness the people in romance movies always seemed to dramatically die of after getting turned down.

"Okay Boy, you googled our names, didn't you?" It wasn't really a question. Meadhbh’s Look was hard enough to cut a hole in a diamond.

I spun my office chair – a recent addition after the fire alarm flood incident. This one had a water warranty. "I did _not_! I was looking up new rock singles – you know, since you like to explode your brain with bass beats – and it sort of… caught my eye.”

She was off the sofa before I registered her moving, still so fast, but not quite as graceful. I could hear her feet hit the ground before she swooped in, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "You're adorable."

I caught Meadhbh’s hand before she could dart off again, curled my fingers around hers. She turned, and I pulled her down for a kiss – a real one. Muted sparks popped between us, her breath sweet, her hands cupping my cheeks. And the it was over, and Meadhbh was stepping back, returning to her post in the Sofa of Doom. I stayed by my computer, trying to beat The Impossible Quiz and hack my way through the server’s outgoing firewall to get a message to Mab.

It was one hundred percent stupid and ill advised, I knew, but I wanted Mab to know that her sister wasn't dead or being tortured. Besides my music choices, of course. Meadhbh had described the latest as "Clichéd soul-tearing cheery cheesiness".

I personally thought her music was a _little_ damaging to the eardrums, but we had agreed to disagree on music.

I'd put hours, _days, _into making an untraceable email, rerouted through so many servers, picture so stripped and rebuilt I'd practically reconstructed it pixel by pixel, but it was worth it. It would mean the world to Meadhbh… But I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was on thin enough ice as it was, with the whole falling-in-love-with-a-Stealer thing. If they knew how far I’d go to protect her, make her happy…

_Mab Tuller,_

_You don’t know me, but we share an acquaintance. Meadhbh. She’s fine, don’t worry. She’s alive, she isn’t being tortured, and she’s not being kept in a cell. I’m so sorry she was captured, but she’s not in an awful place here, with me. Here, so you know I’m not lying. _

_[MEADHBH-WORKING-ON-MURAL.JPEG]_

_I’m sorry she was taken from you, and I hope we can work together to make sure she gets back to you. I know she misses you, I can see it in her every single day. I can't tell you where I am, or who I am, or anything. It was difficult enough to get this email out in the first place without any sort of restricted information. _

I couldn’t tell Meadhbh I’d contacted her sister because telling Meadhbh would just make her hurt more. She couldn’t get back to her sister, not any time soon. I’d try to get her out, try to make the scientists trust her, but it would be a slow game.

“Okay Boy?” Meadhbh called, and I let go of the mouse so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. She stared over at me, her heart-shaped face so similar to the photo of her sister I’d been looking at. “I hate to admit this, but that artist is actually quality. Would you mind?”

I smiled over at her, the screen black behind me without my fingerprint on the mouse. “Not at all. Never do.”

I multitasked, bombarding the firewall with program after program as the rest of the album downloaded from iTunes. It had the startlingly pun-tastic title of _Yay/Nay_, which I was sure Meadhbh would appreciate.

The computer dinged, and I glanced over my shoulder, making sure Meadhbh wasn’t watching. She wasn’t – the sofa had eaten her up to her shoulders, anchoring her firmly in place. I opened the email, read it one last time, torn.

I had a choice, right here, right now. My father, my job, everyone that raised me. Honouring the memory of the people who died to keep this place safe and secret.

Or Meadhbh. Darling, gorgeous, _dazzling_ Meadhbh.

I ran my fingers over the shell of my ear, thinking. Then, I made my decision, went back to the email.

_You must really love her. I know what that feels like, and I swear I won’t let you down. _

I stared at the screen again, took one last look at the top of Meadhbh’s bright blonde head.

I clicked send**.**


	29. 20. Naythan

I was on a mission, waiting for a response to my knock. I’d gone to the top, my cards in hand. I had one chance at this, so I needed to do it right.

I'd already tried going through the official channels, which hadn’t ended well. Airhorn Guy had looked positively panicked, set the fire alarm at me, and tooted his airhorn pen at me as he fled in terror. I got the feeling he’d got the memo about my genetics. I also got the strange feeling that he didn’t think I was human. Somehow. Subtly.

I hadn’t been amused at getting drenched for the third time in as many days. My ears throbbed, my shoes sucked and groaned, but I could console myself with the thought that my room would be fine. I’d taken precautions, given how often they tried to drive us apart with cold showers from the sky. Well, my floor would be a mess, again, but I’d given up on it. I’d never go barefoot again.

The door creaked open and my father frowned out at me like I was a wet cat, dripping and hissing on his doorstep. The description was more accurate than I wanted to admit – I needed a shower and new outfit. Doctor Simeon didn’t look _too_ angry, so that was a good start. More than I’d expected to get, anyway. "Naythan. Good to see you again."

It wasn’t good to see him again, but whatever. "Doctor Simeon-“ I started, but nope.

"Call me Father,” Doctor Simeon told me, and smiled. It was a hard, uncomfortable smile, one that belonged in a room full of business executives. He had that look about him, the one that spoke to a carefully constructed delusion. The one that said he really did think of himself as my father.

"No thanks." Hey, I’d said _thanks_. That was polite, wasn’t it? I smiled as I collected my thoughts, hoping my confusion didn’t show through the cracks. I wasn’t going to play his game, not yet. I needed to wait until we were actually talking to lay may cards on the table, so to speak. "I have an idea to test the loyalty of Meadhbh, if you're interested in keeping her around longer."

Doctor Simeon stepped back, the door opening wider. The welcome was apparent in everything but his expression, still frozen and sour. I brushed past him, trying not to feel inadequate next to his suit and perfectly coiffed hair, and seated myself on the client side of his desk. I knew it was for clients because it was a) expensive looking b) uncomfortable and c) across the desk from a chair that looked less like a chair and more like a throne.

I didn’t know why he’d have a client chair in a secret underground compound, but who knew? It’d probably come in a set with the rest of his overstated mahogany furniture, each piece complementing the aura of discomfort my father had laid out around him like a red carpet.

Doctor Simeon seated himself on his pricey leather throne and folded his hands on the table. Then, he stared at me, impenetrable. I got the feeling the whole chair thing was to make him look impressive. Unfortunately, since the throne reached a good two inches above his head, all it succeeded in was making him look small. "Tell me, son, what are your plans for Subject A?"

Hit the ground running, eh? My jaw tensed, and I had to work to unclench it so I could talk. "Meadhbh. Her name is Meadhbh."

He shrugged, waved a hand like it was completely irrelevant, which it was _not_. If we were going to discuss whether or not Meadhbh was going to live, we could at least refer to her by name. But I couldn’t get angry, couldn’t sacrifice my advantage this early. I was counting on _him_ getting too flustered to think, not me. "If we were to add a failsafe, some sort of Taser in her anklet, someone could take _Meadhbh_ to a public place and see if she tries to make a run for it."

Doctor Simeon nodded, unwillingly impressed. The idea hadn’t hit any red flags yet. That was going to last all of three more seconds. "What kind of public place?"

I pretended to think, pretended to hit upon an idea. "Maybe a coffee shop?" I said. Innocently. As if this whole venture wasn’t about… something else. "In a public square. Somewhere where it's bustling."

Doctor Simeon’s somewhat accepting expression shut down. _Red flag! Alert!_ He repeated my words, bland. "A coffee shop."

I started to fidget, realized how suspicious that would look, and froze. My nerves jangled. "We wouldn't tell her where she was, obviously. Someone would go with her – someone who wouldn't stand out in a crowd. A supervisor who wouldn't be suspicious hanging around a teenage girl."

More red flags popped up, a veritable bouquet of them. His eyes flashed, the father façade peeling away at the edges. Shame, after all his hard to appear like a reasonable human being. "And you have a suggestion for that someone?"

I clasped my hands too, mirroring his posture. "Well, ideally it would be someone close to her age, so they could pretend to be her friend."

Doctor Simeon’s hands, clasped so carefully, turned bone white. It looked like he was trying to squeeze a skull between his palms – at this point, he was likely imagining my skull. I pretended I didn’t notice. "Plus, we need someone who can drive," _I can drive_. "You know, so the mission can be far from the compound. We don’t want her finding out where we are and managing to get that out to her nest."

His face soured further, and the expression, so like mine, was beginning to freak me out. "Any suggestions for this wonder guard, _son_?"

I leaned forward, pressed my palms flat on the table. "Father," I said, drawing out the word like taffy. He'd asked me to call him that, and until now I'd refused. I wanted something, so I’d play his game. Card one: on the table. "_Father_, I think I would be the best choice. We could appear to be friends out for a coffee. We could both wear an anklet, and if she tries to get away, the Taser would go off. I can pass it off as a peanut allergy.”

I was proud of that idea. We had more than enough materials to whip up linked anklets – not that I’d already done that or anything. The plan was simple, perfect.

Doctor Simeon shook his head, lips pursed. He clearly thought I was some sort of high-class idiot, taken in by the first pretty face that smiled his way. "Son, I don't approve of-"

"Of what? Meadhbh? She's only got as much time as you'll give her.” And oh, how that killed me. Meadhbh’s life was in his hands. Unless she could prove herself worthy, the beautiful, amazing girl would disappear from the face of the earth. “I won't let her get anyone else's heart, and you'll know if you can trust her or not. It's win-win."

I kept my palms pressed to the table, but sat back. Our eyes met, and I couldn't see anything giving in the depths, no sign of acceptance. Two cards weren’t enough – the intelligence of the plan, the manipulation. Fine. I’d go for broke.

Eyes still locked, I played my trump card. One last secret, one last bargaining chip – one I knew they couldn’t turn down. The SRC needed every minute piece of information they could get on Stealers – and on me. "If you let us go, I'll actually complete all those psych and intelligence tests accurately. You want to know how a Stealer/Human hybrid functions? Let us go. I'll even throw in a year of not hacking into the server."

Equations lit up in his eyes, see the results that had never matched up spinning with neon lights in his mind. Unknown variables were the one thing scientists could never stand. I was _the_ unknown variable, the boy that never should have been. If I told them there was more to me than their excruciatingly detailed research had uncovered… well, I had my cards on the table. Set. Match.

I stood. I had to go, now. See if that was worth it to him – if I left the room without a single comment, I’d won. From what I’d heard about him, he always wanted the last word. I guess I inherited that from him. "Good day. Father. We'll set out at eleven hundred hours tomorrow."

And then? I left. I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my head, could feel the tight-wound tension in the air. But. _But_. He let me go.

And that meant yes.

I raced to Meadhbh's cell, flying down the corridors at record speed. I blasted past the door on the first time round, skidding on still-sodden shoes. Meadhbh’s cell was on a different floor than the offices, at least. Her things wouldn’t have been drenched.

The glass door was slightly ajar, and I could hear music piping out. I peeked through the crack, surprised to find Meadhbh lying on her stomach across a fuzzy turquoise blanket, slippers dangling off the edges of her feet. A wineglass was in front of her, the source of the music. The iPod was placed in it, and I smiled fondly as I realized she'd figured out a way to get her own personal stereo system. Why they trusted her with a wineglass, key word _glass_, I didn't know, but I was far too excited to care. 

Meadhbh’s eyes flickered up, caught mine. Before I could say, _Wait, I’m leaning on the door_, she popped to her feet and swung the door open. I stumbled a few steps forwards, off balance, and Meadhbh grinned wickedly at me. She ruffled my hair, smiled up at me as she returned to her blanket. “Hey, Okay Boy.”

"Hey, Medby." I lowered myself to the other side of the blanket, not half as graceful as she always was, even in these strange days when she seemed… human. In the four days since I sent the email to her sister, she'd lost the last of her supernatural speed and warmth. This heart was failing faster than her other one, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. Dave had been the captain of the football team. Dr. Francis "Idiot" Reed, PhD, had been a pudgy nerd.

Mind buzzing, I leant against Meadhbh and listened to the music, words flipping in and out of perception. It was a couple seconds before I caught a full line, and my eyes went wide. "Okay, Medby, you aren't going to go hunt down that singer, are you?"

Meadhbh stared at me for a second, eyebrows quizzical, then squeezed my hand reassuringly. The tune wound through my mind again, and uneasiness started to churn in my stomach. That line had been _way_ too on the mark – way too close to the pledge of doom. Meadhbh sighed at the look in my eyes, leaned in to smooth out my crinkled forehead. "It's just a song."

I nodded, shoved the thought away. I was being ridiculous – hadn’t I learned anything from all the time I’d spent with her? Meadhbh didn’t do the whole acquiring pledges through questionable methods thing. She wasn’t like that. Meadhbh wasn’t like the other Stealers.

"So..." I said. My nerves rushed back like they’d never been gone, washing away any remnants of unease. "Okay."

Meadhbh smoothed her thumb over the back of my hand, and I took a deeper breath, swallowed hard. It was just Meadhbh, for heaven’s sake. I could get the words out. "Okay, um, Medby. You want to go out? For coffee?"

Meadhbh just blinked. "Say again?"

_I have to say it **twice**?_

I repeated myself. A little slower.

Comprehension dawned, and she shook her head. "Okay Boy, you fetch me coffee every morning. No need to drag me with you to the caf."

I groaned. Not enough comprehension, seriously? Was it always this hard to ask someone out on a date? "No, no, no. Like outside the compound. To some unknown beverage joint. A date, Medby. I'm asking you out on a date. An actual one, this time."

This time, the reaction was instantaneous. Meadhbh’s face lit up like a candle, warmth spilling out. I felt lit on fire just by being near her. "An actual coffee?"

I laughed and stuck my tongue out at her. Relief coursed through me, and I took the first real breath in what felt like a week. "No, imaginary coffee. Yes, Medby. Actual coffee at an actual coffee place."

Meadhbh threw her arms around me, and I could feel my ribs groaning. I clung to her, trying to memorize the moment, salt and shampoo, bright blond, warmth and laughter.

"I'd love to go with you, Okay Boy." She whispered, her breath gusting over my ear. I shivered. "Always. Always."


	30. 20.5 Personal Log

** Personal Log of Caleb Simeon **

I absolutely cannot _believe_ what happened today. My horrendous son forced me into a situation with not a _single_ favourable outcome. Taking the Stealer out of the compound? Awful idea! _Him_ going as her ‘supervisor’? Even worse! And too a _coffee shop_? The kid wasn’t even trying to disguise his dastardly motives at that point. Still, I just _couldn’t_ pass up what he offered me in exchange. Damn Naythan is too smart for his own good.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned the whole son thing yet? I only learned that the genetic material I donated had been successfully used _after_ the baby was born. After that, he was just an experiment, so I didn't bother checking in. What was the point? Everyone thought we’d be terminating them in a couple years. The rest of the subjects were failures – how was I supposed to know that the one that had my genetic material was the survivor? All the midgets look the same. I hadn't expected him to stick around so long, either. Sixteen years in, and just _now_ is he starting with the miserable failures.

Obviously, the subject is not my actual son. He doesn't obey me, and worse, he has fallen under Stealer influence! That’s something that never would have happened for a man like me. The scientists must've messed around with his genes, that’s the only explanation. There's nothing recognizable of me in him. Well, besides his looks. If I took him to one of those infernal family gatherings he wouldn’t look a whit out of place- but that’s not the point!

In the incident today, he manipulated me into allowing a mission to the outside world with the captured Stealer. It's a thinly disguised date, but I had to go along with it because of what he mentioned at the end. He’s been fudging his intelligence test? How genius do you have to be to do that? He’s been doing those every three years since he was _nine!_

The most concerning part is the score he’d been getting already. The subject was a damned genius, and a prodigal hacker. Skills from my superior genetics, clearly. The other side of his… parentage couldn’t have done much. Amalie always was a doofus.

When that terrible hybrid comes back and completes his tests, he will be put under lockdown. We can proceed with the rehabilitation of the Stealer without him. This whole fiasco has been allowed to go entirely too far. He isn’t fully human – he shouldn't have had any authority. He abuses it – after the camera debacle, we need to keep him away from our sensitive files.

Yes. That will be perfect. When Subject Naythan gets back, he will be confined and removed from the project. We have to get him to make more of those anklets, though. They'll be great for getting subjects through public places.

Everything will be fixed when Subject Naythan returns from his errand. I will be once again in control of the situation. All will be as it should be.


	31. 21. Naythan

For my date, I’d raided my closet. Honestly, I didn't know what I expected to be different. I had T-shirts. Sweats. One tank top that I will never wear again. That was all. I think Meadhbh had burned my jean shorts.

I wanted to look _nice_ for my date, even though I felt stupid thinking about it. I'd never been on a date before and I didn’t know what to expect. Living in an underground compound didn't tend to lend itself well to relationships. Some scientists had brought their daughters to work, but they were either spoiled brats or self-satisfied geniuses. Exactly two had tried to talk to me.

The first one had used Einstein’s theory of relativity as an icebreaker. The ice had thickened. The second one had used the word _lackadaisical_ no less than four times in a two-minute conversation. I lacked the will to pursue her. Meadhbh wasn’t like either of them – she was genuine, sweet, caring. Also, she was interested in me, though I couldn’t figure out why. It certainly wasn’t because of the wardrobe.

I stared at my pathetic wardrobe for another second before just scowling and choosing the navy version of the compound shirt and normal sweats. It wasn’t like I had much choice, and besides, Meadhbh wouldn't judge me. Right?

_Naythan. It’s **Meadhbh**. You think she cares?_

I slammed the door of my wardrobe with more force than strictly necessary. It was the work of a couple seconds to get dressed, and I was just starting to freak out all over again when the knock came. I almost jumped out of my skin, clutching at the wardrobe door like it could protect me.

"Okay Boy?" Meadhbh called, voice faint through the door. She sounded amused. I could picture her, hand on her hips, her hair falling into her face and almost hiding her gentle smile. "You done primping?"

"I am not _primping." _I let go of my closet, tried not to laugh. I _was_ primping. Lot of good it would do for me. For one to primp, they needed clothes in more than two colours, and oh yeah, a mirror. I didn’t have a mirror in my cell, unless you counted the distorted reflection on my TV. I poked at a hunk of hair that was sticking up straight against all laws of common sense and gravity. “Totally not.”

Meadhbh chortled. Somehow, even through a door, she could read me like a book. I could do the same for her, but only when I could see her. Meadhbh always seemed to be one up on me, whatever I did. "You're a terrible liar, Okay Boy."

I had to laugh at that, sparking a genuine laugh from Meadhbh. Airhorn Dude, her chaperone, decided it was unseemly. This, of course, meant he bleeped it out with his ever-present airhorn. I was still chuckling when I opened the door and glared out at Airhorn Dude. His face was all screwed up like he’d been sucking on a lemon, and he was holding the airhorn out in front of him like it was a cross and I was a vampire.

I did my best to shout over the din, ears happily resuming the ringing they’d stopped yesterday. "You are dismissed!" Airhorn Dude blinked at me, and I repeated myself, careful to mouth the words clearly. He was probably deaf, what with all the airhorn he blared at every living thing. Finally, he got the point and retreated, covering himself with a final angry blare. _Why_ had they hired this guy? He used airhorns like they were his personal religion.

I turned to Meadhbh, halfway through rolling my eyes at Airhorn Dude’s idiocy, but I couldn't help the goofy smile that appeared on my face.

Meadhbh was _beautiful_. She always was, but the brightness of her smile and the delicate pile of her hair – secured by rubber bands and luck – made her simply stunning.

"Wow," I breathed, and my wits fled to somewhere out of reach. "You- you look _awesome._"

Meadhbh ducked her head, cheeks flushing. "It's just my jacket and sweats. It's nothing."

I held out my hand, gingerly, not really believing she'd take it. But she did, weaving her fingers tight with mine, only slightly warmer than they should have been, if she was human. As much as she hated resting all day, it had done good things for her heart. She really should listen to me more often – then we could have more perfect days like this. I wouldn’t mind that in the slightest.

"Shall we go?" I said, gesturing grandly to the door. Half of me expected her to laugh and go _Nope, I was kidding, I’m going back to my cell now_, but she didn’t. Instead, Meadhbh smiled, and my heart flipped in my chest. "You're the one holding us up with your primping, Okay Boy."

In what felt like in instant, we were loaded in the SRC SUV and puttering out into the sunlight. Meadhbh chattered aimlessly in the back, speaking through the partition between us. She complained about the blacked out windows, the length of the trip, and my driving. I rolled my eyes at her, though she couldn’t see me, and followed the meandering route the scientists had programmed into the GPS. It was annoying me too, what with going through the same intersection four times and doing U-Turns every thirty seconds, but I didn’t have a choice. They had a tracker in the car to make sure nothing went wrong. If I deviated from the insane route, they’d assume something had gone wrong, and bye-bye, day outside.

The sunlight was almost too bright after getting used to the fluorescent lights of the SRC. I hadn’t been outside in… wow, way too long. For the millionth time, I remembered that I’d had a terrible childhood. Say what you wanted about Stealers, but they got to play outside when they were children. Meadhbh had even talked about a camping trip she’d gone on. That sounded _amazing._

After an hour and a half of listening to complaints and memorizing the countryside, we reached the designated café. It was a small one, not near any inconvenient road signs or landmarks, smack in the middle of nowhere suburbia. Oakville, maybe – or possibly Burlington. I could never tell whether the signs were saying WELCOME TO or YOU ARE LEAVING.

I disembarked, butt numb after hours in the driver’s seat. After a quick little jig to reanimate the frozen nerves, I yanked Meadhbh’s door open, grinning. “We have arrived, my lady."

Meadhbh snorted at me, already unbuckled and raring to go. Her slide out of the SUV was a lot more graceful than mine, hopping down without tripping over her own feet. Her sweatpants rode up, though, and for a half-second I could see the green light blinking at her ankle. My smile faltered, seeing it, the one on my ankle gaining a couple hundred pounds. A bit of the illusion fell away, a little bit of normalcy. However much this felt like a date, it was nothing but a faint taste of a normalcy we’d never see.

Meadhbh grabbed my hand, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her eyes bored into my soul. "Whatever you do," she said seriously. "Don't order me an extra small plain coffee."

I frowned at her, distracted. I’d never seen her in straight sunlight before. Her hair, freshly washed, was lit into spun gold, her skin glowing gold and her cheeks a healthy pink. Meadhbh looked like the girl in the photo I’d first seen of her, the carefree one that hadn’t spent over a month underground. She looked… angelic. Bewitching. "Wait, what? Don’t get you what kind of coffee?"

She just shook her head at me, strands of hair fluttering out to frame her face. The stack of hair wavered, but stayed – a more impressive feat than managing this date in the first place. "Nothing."

"Whatever you say, oh glorious one." With a flourish, I held the door open for her. The wave of coffee aroma hit us like physical wall, and Meadhbh’s smile widened. She leant into the smell, took a deep breath.

Meadhbh turned back, eyes sparkling. "It smells _amazing._"

I poked her in the back, making her turn back to face the coffee shop before she could catch sight of my soppy grin. This is why I’d wanted to get her out – this happiness, the way she looked at the world around her like she’d never seen colour before. "Keep moving, Medby. It gets better."

Meadhbh stepped into the store, gazing in awe at the apple fritters and massive stylized menus. I stepped in after her and closed the door softly behind us, the entrance bells jingling overhead. The light in the shop was almost entirely natural – huge windows adorned every wall, precious sunlight pouring in. The shop was quiet, the only other people around a single couple leaning into each other in the back.

Meadhbh spun on the spot, devouring the sights and sounds. "_Wow_."

I tugged on my ear, cheeks going red. I didn’t know what to do with such a awed Meadhbh. "I know it's not fancy or anything but-"

Meadhbh laughed, incredulous, and spun back to me. She slung her arms around my neck, smiled at me from less than an inch away. “It’s amazing.” Meadhbh closed the rest of the distance, and I could feel her smile against my lips. Then she pulled back, slid her hands down my arms, and dragged me to the counter.

The girl manning the cash was touching up the chalk menu, adding swirls and curls to the ends of the letters and doodling tiny animals inside the O’s. They were adorable, but I’d seen Meadhbh’s spectacular artwork and the tiny drawings paled in comparison to Meadhbh’s monolithic murals.

The girl looked up, and her whole face softened. Her nametag flashed on her chest in the sunlight – ANDREA. "Awww!" she said. "What do you cuties want?"

I went bright red but Meadhbh tucked her head against my shoulder and squeezed my hand. For the first time, the day felt… real. We were actually out. We were actually on a date. "I'd like a medium vanilla chai latte."

I squinted up at the menu. For all the thought I’d put into getting to the coffee shop, I hadn’t put thought into what we’d do when we got there. Oops. "I'll have a... medium black coffee. Please."

Andrea laughed, abbreviating her drawing into a little smiley face and heading for the machine. Her hair, a riot of half-tamed black curls, cascaded down from her ponytail. "Sure thing. Just a mo'. I’ll bring it to your table when I’m done with it, ‘kay? It’s pretty dull in here." She paused and then doubled back, smiling sheepishly. “Right. That’ll be four seventy six.”

Money. Right. I had to dig through my pockets to find a five-dollar bill, and when I got my change, I plunked it into the tip jar along with a spare loonie. I grinned at Andrea for a half second, caught the whirring of the coffeemaker, and then Meadhbh whisked me off to our table.

We sat on opposite sides of a table by the window, the other couple in the opposite corner. They were sitting on the same side of the booth, both of the twenty-something girls leaning into each other like they wanted to melt into one being. One was softly beautiful, her skin a dusky brown, her hair a few shades darker, the other a bubbly, arm-waving girl with peroxide blonde hair that was so huge and frizzed it looked like she’d stuck her finger in a light socket. The bright girl nudged the other’s shoulder, grinning like it was her sole purpose in life. I could just hear the blonde over the coffeemaker. “Oh, Juliette, you’ll have to introduce me to this Maura some day. She sounds like a riot.”

Meadhbh placed her hands over mine, her thumbs curling to press against my wrists. She seemed anxious about something, and she wouldn’t quite catch my eyes. It wasn’t like she was going to escape – she knew better, and besides, she was looking the sugar shaker, not the door. She kept opening her mouth to say something, closing it. Biting her lip.

"You okay, Medby?" I asked, flipped my hands over to wind them with hers. Again, she refused to meet my eyes, studying the little containers of milk and cream like the contained the solution to world peace. The couple behind her drew my eyes again, the blonde patting – Juliette, I think it was – Juliette’s shoulder. Juliette’s eyes were downcast and brimming with tears. I looked back at Meadhbh, just as frozen as the crying girl was. “Medby?”

Her head snapped up, eyes locking onto mine. She withdrew her hands, scrubbed them on her sweats. My hands felt empty without hers. "I'm good. I'm fine."

I didn’t believe her. "Okay."

Somehow, our coffees had appeared on the table. Andrea was nowhere to be seen, the coffee machines gurgling away without her. I added milk and sugar to my coffee for something to do, still entranced by the girl across from me. Meadhbh was amazing, so close to free and glowing from it.

I sipped my coffee, content to wait this out. Meadhbh didn’t touch hers, instead opting to play with one of the fake sugar packets. I finished my coffee, stared at Meadhbh some more. I would never get over looking at her, not even on the day I died. I wanted to see Meadhbh like this all the time, when she was sparking with life.

Finally, she looked up and held my gaze. Her eyes were even more brilliant in the sun, and I wanted to tell her how they looked like emeralds. I’d told her before, of course I had, but last time she’d laughed. "Will you listen?" Meadhbh asked, so quietly I almost missed it. "Through it all? Please?"

I reached for her hands, clasped them tight. "Of course, Medby."

She looked down at our hands, up at my face, and tried so hard to smile it was almost painful to see. "Look, Okay Boy, I... haven't exactly had a chance to love anytime before. My mother always told me that boys were worthless, that they weren’t anything more than a heart on legs. But…” and she faltered, her gaze falling again to the sugar. “You aren’t like that and it’s confusing, confounding, and I don’t understand. I can feel it-“ and she pulled our joined hands to press to her chest. I could feel her heart beating through her fragile skin, pounding like she had just leapt off a cliff. “Here. And… Naythan, I don’t know how else to say this.”

Meadhbh let go of my hands, smoothed her hair back, took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to trick you, I swear, it’s just… I love you feels so ordinary, so shallow. I love painting, I love drawing, I love sunlight. But you… I’d give you my heart, Okay Boy. Whatever time’s left on it.” Meadhbh licked her lips, took another steadying breath. My own heart was frozen in my chest. I couldn’t- I couldn’t- “You don’t have to say it back, promise. I just… had to tell you. Or else it wouldn’t feel real.”

My heart restarted with a jolt, my mind still frozen in unreachable tundra. Meadhbh was earnest, beautiful, a second from tears, biting her lip to shove the emotions back down. My own emotions surged, waves of warmth coursing through me. I knew what I was saying, even as I said it. I knew it was stupid, ill-advised, and I knew that it could get me killed. I didn’t care. “I give you my heart, Meadhbh. I trust you.”

Meadhbh’s smile was so wide, so bright. She was the sun, with her hair gleaming gold and pure joy emanating from her like rays of right. “Thank you,” she told me, but it wasn’t her sweet voice, her normal voice. It was something stronger, a note of vicious delight growling at the edges.

And then her hand flashed forward, settling her palm to the centre of my chest. Her eyes glowed, literally, the sun striking them into green fire. For a second everything was fine but then there was a jolt in my chest like a lightning strike and the world went scarlet with pain.


	32. 22. Meadhbh

Power rushed through me in a tidal wave, every particle of my being exploding with energy – bright and light and free. I straightened, my hand leaving his chest with an almost-audible _pop_ of the link breaking free. My new heart thundered in my chest, each beat enough to shake me on my frame. Wind roared outside, the trees bending in the wind, scarlet leaves breaking free.

I felt like I was buoyant, floating. I knew I was immortal. I could feel it, in the effortless way I twisted and bent around the table to grab my coffee. I could see it in the golden filigree edging that still lingered on the chalk menu, half a coffee shop away. I could smell it, hear it, _live _it.

If I believed the legends, his heart would last me a year. If I believed the legends, I’d forever be someone to reckon with, even when the heart was long gone. If I believed the legends, this would be the best thing that had ever happened to me. And I believed, with fire and ice and hope in my veins. 

Naythan slumped in his chair, his eyes dulling, skin drained and grey. He looked utterly betrayed. A smile bloomed on my face, the one he'd called my sunshine smile. The two girls were screaming at each other, the dark haired one sobbing and trying to break free of her girlfriend’s arms. She was yelling something like _again, it’s happening again,_ but I could barely hear them over the bells in my soul.

Hybrids. Oh, legends of legends. I hadn’t believed them – nobody had. They were bedtime stories, ones I’d told Tulip a hundred times. The legends said: they look like a boy, smile like a boy, die like a boy, but when you touch them – you know. They’re things of magic: awful, wonderful magic.

Naythan jolted in his chair, the heart failure already setting in. What a waste. I’d nearly hoped he’d make it his own so I could come back again, someday. "Why?" He reached for me, his hand twitching across the table like he genuinely thought I’d grab it, save him; tell him this was all was a lie. Oh, how sweet. He thought I cared. I must’ve done a better job than I’d thought.

It _was_ a lie, but not the lie he thought. _Medby_ had been the lie, a carcass of sunshine and manufactured sadness. She had been a carefully prepared falsity, something sweet and tiny and idiotic enough for him to believe. Falling for him had been a lie. I grinned, knowing my eyes, the eyes he so often compared to jewels, were sparkling with glee. "Because I can, Okay Boy."

The movement was over before I’d considered it, and I found myself leaning over the broken boy. My bones felt built of dynamite. I reached down, snapped the anklet off my foot without losing contact with his agonized eyes. I dropped the sparking piece of junk on the table, patted him on the head. Good little pet. You did as I said. "Thank you for making this… interesting."

One last look – the sobbing couple, the gaping cashier, the dying boy. And then I was gone, bells clanging in the door behind me. I hurtled down the sidewalk, feet barely touching the ground. It felt like flying, better. It felt like life – distilled to the perfect basics. There was no need for romance, no need for silly boys that waited far too long to act on their silly feelings. Life was running, flying, floating, and being free.

In the distance, somehow, I could hear the bells still ringing away in the café door. They rang as I flew, a bird free from her cage. They’d tried to tame me, break me. I’d taken the pieced they’d snapped off and built myself armour, sealed my cracks with fury and the pieces a naïve boy had given me: hope. And still, I could hear the bells.

Funeral bells. For a naive little boy, fallen in love with a shell. Funeral bells, for each and every person that would try to catch me again. I was not a bird, a docile creature to be captured, poked, or prodded. I was not anything they could begin to comprehend.

I was a monster, and I would live like a god.


End file.
